Cities should be places for people, but in so many cities we have lost sight of the basic common sense that our communities used to be built around.  Development happens on a grand scale but without the fine-grained edges, permeability and dense façades that bring life.  Over time, traditionally-scaled communities (or green space) are demolished or degraded to make way for wider roads and huge commercial and retail centres that kill our streets. Commercial interests favour cars and chain stores in a process that blends everything into blandness.

Often we think this is what we want, this is what progress is.  But actually this process reduces the creativity and entrepreneurial drive in our cities and above all makes them less pleasant places to live.  They unknit and lose some of their sense of community.

Magic happens in the cracks and the small spaces that human-scale cities provide.  It is the little places where neighbours talk, creativity is unleashed and businesses begin. Great cities are works of art created over time by all its inhabitants.

This blog is about holding onto the places with cracks and building new places for people.  We can have big developments and progress as long as we understand and implement planning for the human scale.  We can build cities that work.