I visited recently a friend’s office in central London, an office with a stunning, 180-degree view of the Thames, looking out over the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, HMS Belfast and the Mayor of London’s headquarters.  After the meeting I took a stroll along that section of the riverbank between London and Tower bridges and was struck by the enormous investment that has been made in London and the sensitivity of the development that’s happened in recent years in one of the most historic cityscapes in the world.

It made me realize how important and difficult it is to get the balance right between, on the one hand, conservation and protection of historic buildings and, on the other, the development necessary to ensure the future prosperity of a city.  The architectural treasures of London are uniquely rich and play an out-sized role in the city’s psyche.  Londoners are, as a rule, very protective of ancient landmarks and politicians are rightly wary of any development that threatens them.  How different that is from a city like New York where historic buildings are bulldozed with barely a second’s thought to make way for the latest gleaming (and often ugly) office or apartment building.  Much more than buildings and history are lost when such insensitive development happens.  Also lost is that variety, that blend of the old and the new, that over time deepens and enriches the character of a city.  The evolution of a truly great and beautiful city is the work of generations, but it has to begin with a continuous commitment to getting the balance right.  It’s my view that New York City, for all its dynamism and energy, will never rank as one of the great cities of the world unless it puts some restrictions on its new construction and starts to take conservation seriously. You can’t and shouldn’t conserve everything.  Many undistinguished buildings have been rightly demolished, but a truly great city needs to be seen and planned as a single, organic entity and with a clear presiding vision.  Get it right, as city governments in places such as London, Shanghai, and Paris have, and the rewards are visible for centuries to come: fascinating, surprising, provocative urban tapestries made with old and new threads.

The effort required to make this happen grows, in my view, from a commitment to something called society.  It’s not easy to define but it springs from a particular perspective and a set of characteristics.  It starts with respect for yesterday, today, and tomorrow and an appropriate balance between them. It begins with a recognition that a city has to be for everyone.  Not just for the young or for the prosperous or for the able bodied, but also for the elderly inhabitants and visitors and those who find it difficult to get around, for the walkers and the cyclists as well as the car owners.  It demands costly investment in roads and sidewalks, bridges and tunnels, rivers and parks, and, of course, in transport.  The transformation in my lifetime of London’s tube network has been extraordinarily farsighted.  Londoners, of course, still complain, but they have an underground network that’s for the most part efficient, safe, and clean.  Other cities around the world can make similar claims.  Compare that to New York’s subway system: crumbling, dirty, and inaccessible to many of its residents.  Cities don’t work when individuals and individualism are valued at the expense of communities and societies.  It’s as simple, and as complicated, as that.