ABSTRACT
The role of towns and cities as places of the imagination may be emphasised. Places of the imagination are essentially places that change and can be designed. Places of imagination lead therefore to the practice of urban design, dened as ‘the art of making places for people’ (DETR 2000a, 8). Urban design is about imagining alternatives, above all about imaginary landscapes and showing how places might be in the future. Governments promote urban design exactly for this reason as ‘central to the delivery of sustainable communities’.1
