Reclaim the streets: it’s only when you stroll about amongst pots, pear trees and picnic tables that you really feel the potential of car-free streets.

A tale of two typologies: how compatible are height and place? (And does London need a Stadsbouwmeester?)

Low rise high pleasure: Amsterdam’s former lumber wharf is now home to a dizzying array of canal-based new homes and offices.

Mixing it: as London attempts to combine high density resi with workspace and industrial uses, I ask myself: WWDD? (What Would the Dutch do?) And can a ‘mega-campus’ ever be an intimate place?

Have you heard about London's new airports? No? Let me explain.

Move closer: Could you live 5 metres from your opposite neighbour? Many do...

Urban Conversations: Peabody's great-gran shouts across the road to Barratt's strapping new-born - you can tell they're related...

Soul-searching: Toronto's bold growth programme combines high rise with red brick heritage but does place result?

New York's 20s apartment megaliths have a lot to teach us now: high density can be both beautiful and humane.

This hugely ambitious neighbourhood renewal has seen mixed quality results, depending on the delivering party and the continuity of the architect.

Landscape is all too easily value engineered towards the end of a development project, with detrimental results to otherwise exemplary schemes.

Artwork can add real emotional depth to a housing scheme – or it can just make you scratch your head in bewilderment.

A promising start to this new neighbourhood has descended into farce, as evidenced by comedy downpipes and lamp-posts as well as elevational bling.

‘Start with the Park’ was the title of a CABE Space report some years ago, a message exemplified by this diverse Paris regeneration scheme.

The Ile de Nantes showcases the best and worst of new housing and neighbourhood design, highlighting the importance of heritage buildings in giving a sense of place.

Mixity and Mobility – my two new favourite qualities which are needed in a multi use, highly accessible and intimate neighbourhood. They got it right in old Nantes: what about the new?

The scale of renewal in Bordeaux is astonishing and perhaps more than they can handle. And it’s not easy being green, as both Kermit and the Ginko-Bilobiens have discovered…

Megastructures are a perennial favourite of architects wishing to design ‘total housing’. It’s those pesky people who insist on shopping elsewhere…

Lyon’s massive regeneration of its island is on a similar scale to Nine Elms in London, but uses a more fine grained and diverse approach. Shame about the indoor shopping mall…