Freiburg, Germany

I’m a member of the Academy of Urbanism, a not-for-profit organisation that promotes the creation of better places. One of the very first cities that I went to see with the Academy was Freiburg in Germany. There used to be a NATO military base just outside Freiburg, but the French left in 1992, leaving a very big piece of land vacant, similar to Greenham Common in the UK.

Thinking about what to do with this land, the Germans said: ‘Right, we’re going to turn this into the most sustainable place on Earth’ and put Professor Wulf Daseking, a really lovely person, in charge. I met him, we became friends and still exchange correspondence. He created this place, which was called Vauban.

I’ve been to Vauban and have never seen another place that’s as good. It’s a fantastic example of placemaking. Lots of nature within the community, restrictions on car use, the creation of a community trust made up of the people that live there in order to run it effectively. It’s what we call stewardship.

I have a book called Good Cities, Better Lives, written by Professor Sir Peter Hall of UCL. Professor Hall visited many European cities and wrote a book about his experiences. He was over the moon about everything he saw in Freiburg, a place he called ‘the New Jerusalem’ of placemaking.

Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Eindhoven was known for a very long time as Philips Town. That’s where Philips, the electrical company, had its headquarters and it employed most of the town’s population. But Philips also built a hospital for the town, constructed houses and created the football club, PSV Eindhoven. The P stands for Philips.

But then the bad times came. Towards the end of the 80s, Philips collapsed because people moved away from electrical goods to digital and electronics. So the headquarters was closed and there was a risk that the town was going to degenerate. But the mayor of Eindhoven said ‘We are not going to allow that to happen. We have gained so much knowledge from working with Philips, we’re going to use technology to rebuild our city. In order to do that, we need to create a partnership.’

That partnership was called Triple Helix, and it was a partnership between the council, Eindhoven University and the private sector. They all got together and rebuilt the city using the motto of ‘Better place’, saying they wanted to attract the best brains to come and work there on new technologies.

But why would the best brains come to Eindhoven as opposed to say, Silicon Valley? The partnership decided that the only way it can attract the top talent was to create a quality place. So a peaceful place with lots of greenery everywhere, good schools for people to send their children to, good facilities for pedestrians and cyclists, and so on.

And they did it. Eindhoven is a great place to live and a successful centre of technology and innovation. The lesson here is the creation of the Triple Helix partnership, which is missing in most cases in the UK. It’s just not down to the council to create a better place, it’s down to all of us. It’s a partnership and everybody needs to contribute.

Copenhagen, Denmark

After the Second World War, Copenhagen created the Finger Plan, which involved forming five transport corridors with the best public transport and green spaces in between. At the same time, the city intensified development along the fingers, resulting in larger buildings and more employment. As a result, the people that work and live along those five fingers would have less need of a car, because they were living in green corridors with good public transport.

The authorities also restricted the movement of vehicles in the city centre itself. There is a good anecdote that one of the city’s engineers started to remove 50 parking spaces from the city centre every year without telling anybody. After a few years, suddenly everyone realised that they did not have any parking spaces in the city centre.

But the Danes didn’t just change the transport options. They invested in technologies that helped them construct in timber rather than concrete, since such techniques would emit less carbon. They also built a ski slope in Copenhagen that covered one of the biggest incinerators in Europe. They use the heat from incinerating waste to generate the energy that heats most of the houses in Copenhagen.

So placemaking and creating better communities has got many angles. It’s not just transport. It’s about energy. It’s about the environment. It’s about everything coming together.

• Listen to the CIHT podcast with Andreas Markides about the influence of Greek myths on modern urban planning here.

• Find out more about the Academy of Urbanism here.