The relationship between cities and invention is central to understanding both the initial impulse for settlement, and the continuous evolving urbanisation and growth of cities over recent times. Cities have been the hosts and catalysts of discoveries, in science, medicine, and nature, creativity in art, culture, design, media & information, and communications, inventions in technology, energy, water, buildings, transport, infrastructure, utilities, shared spaces, and innovations in markets & trade, finance, law, services, regulation, and much more. This innovation super-power is what fuels urban appeal and city growth.

 

Moreover, cities periodically face an additional innovation task. When one long cycle ends, and another begins, cities face the challenge to reinvent themselves. These days we speak of ‘urban regeneration, revitalisation, repositioning, or renewal’. These processes of urban adaptation, and cyclical reinvention have been continuous throughout history, but have accelerated in the modern era. Cities that have successfully reinvented themselves have then enjoyed multiple cycles of connection, eminence, and prosperity.  

 

This leads to some tactical questions. What is the right time to reinvent or reimagine a city? How can cities foster and accelerate their own reinvention when needed? What risks and barriers are faced in city reinvention? Do they need input from outside?

 

Those special moments in history when it is both necessary and possible to re-imagine our cities in new ways are usually due to either an abrupt halt to a long phase of stability (eg through a war, pandemic, natural disaster, a deep recession/depression, or a regime change) or to the arrival of new forces and catalysts , such as technology, trade, competition, or new connections that provoke a pre-emptive rethink. 

 

We are living now in such a moment. The combination of threats from climate, insecurity, inequality, and conflicts, combined with opportunities that come from the recent pandemic, new technologies, economic transitions, global development, and population changes, are compelling. In response, cities are developing new intentional platforms and laboratories for experimentation and are pioneering new approaches. This has become both desirable and essential. 

 

Nowhere is this more true than in our built environment, where changes in use of land and buildings, influenced by technology, behaviour & consumption trends, climate peril, affordability imperatives, and economic transitions, are accelerating. This produces the continuous risks of obsolescence and stranded assets, leading to a permanent imperative for agility in our built environment.  

Europe’s cities have an enviable track record in urban reinvention. Long histories, combined with endowments in climate, habitability, location, infrastructure, culture, knowledge production, stable governance and networked collaboration, mean that European’s cities have reinvented themselves many times since the Roman Empire, and in the more recent past the dynamics of wars, deindustrialisation, and regime changes have driven urban reinvention deeper.

  

 

A new cycle of widespread urban reinvention began after the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2010, and was then accelerated by the COVID 19 pandemic. Both events exposed risks in the urbanisation process. The GFC revealed the stark inter-regional inequalities between high wage and low wage cities and regions, especially by making home purchase much more difficult for people on lower incomes. The COVID 19 pandemic, and its lock downs, challenged the very core rationale of cities as places of concentration and congregation. It also accelerated behaviour changes that unbundled several attributes of functioning cities that had built up over time, especially in relation to work in offices, retail in shops, consumption habits, and city centre concentrations.        

 

In 2014, the Mayor of Paris launched the 'Reinventing Paris' programme, which was followed by the 'Reinventing Athens' project four years later. Amsterdam introduced its 'Reinventing Tourism in Amsterdam' initiative in 2020. The Barcelona City Government initiated the 'Reactivating Barcelona' programme in 2020 alongside the Barcelona 2030 and 2050 Commissions. Oslo has been redefining itself in the European system of cities since 2010. Across Europe, many cities have also been engaged in the process of deep reinvention, reimagination, and re-conception, including Bilbao, Berlin, Stockholm, Helsinki,  Copenhagen, Brussels, Lisbon, Istanbul, Glasgow, and many more.

 
This year, building on the momentum of the New London Agenda, NLA launched the 'Reimagine London' competition, sharing innovative and aspirational ideas about the future of the capital which respond to the needs of London and Londoners. 

 

The Reimagine London initiative aimed at generating innovative ideas for enhancing London’s placemaking, with a particular focus on engaging young people and professionals. 100  submissions were received from which 25 were shortlisted and displayed at the London Centre, celebrating key ideas that prioritised community engagement, accessibility, and the activation of public spaces. These emerging themes reflect a collective desire to improve urban life by fostering inclusivity and greater social interaction in public areas.

 

What do we mean by reinvention or reimagination? What outcomes should be achieved? How will cities be different as a result? How can the built environment be the active fabric of that reinvention? This roundtable was part of the NLA International Cities Roundtables, which bring together national and international experts working in cities around the world to share best practice on some of the biggest challenges facing cities, and to help NLA shape our wider cities programming.

 

 
For London, Phil Graham focussed his remarks on how we can create the conditions for ‘Good Growth’ in London, where good growth is the path for reinventing the global city. 

 

London is in a long phase of rapid population growth, now with 9 million inhabitants. So how we get good growth rather than bad growth really matters. Good Growth is socially and economically inclusive, drives economic opportunity, boots investment in inclusion, and produces revenues which support services and wider investment. The GLA’s role, as Phil defines it, is to set a framework to allow London to reinvent itself through the London Plan and the Mayor’s wider strategies, including for economic growth, the environment and transport, which provide a framework to innovate in housing, sustainability, and economic inclusion.

 

Increasingly, as well, alongside his own statutory strategies, the Mayor is seeking to foster shared plans and frameworks, such as the forthcoming London Growth Plan, which are developed jointly with London’s 33 boroughs and other partners.

 

London is a large and diverse city with three tiers of government and specific, but limited, powers at the GLA level. Each place has its own economy and distinct identify. London’s polycentric nature means localised solutions that respect diverse communities and facilitate balanced development are needed across the city.  London is an improvised city. We don’t impose policy or plans on London’s local places, but we grow from them.

 

The key spatial framework that enables this is the London Plan. This shapes how all organisations involved in the city respond to key challenges, and places good growth as its key focus. The London Plan has enabled the delivery of significant projects such as the major urban regeneration at King’s Cross, and has helped us avoid missteps like the Tulip. It has driven strategic change by enabling affordable housing, big improvements in sustainability of new buildings, and protection of cultural infrastructure. 

 

The process to revise and update the London Plan is about to begin. The key challenge is to meet the housing demand for 80,000 new homes a year, whilst integrating community priorities. 

 

But Reimagining London isn’t just about buildings. It’s also about high streets and healthy streets, as this is where people spend most of their time outside of the home. Adaptive high streets is the model London is promoting. The Mayor’s Transport Strategy is also built around the principle of healthy streets. London is not going to be a leading city for business if it is not a diverse, safe, and enjoyable city. The revitalisation of high streets, particularly Oxford Street is essential. The is a need to increase density to address the housing crisis, possibly through taller buildings. 

 

The GLA's regeneration initiatives, including the Good Growth by Design programme, the Good Growth Fund and the more recent Civic Partnerships Fund, foster projects that integrate local needs and test new urban development ideas. All this is only possible with a place-based approach. Place partnerships are the only way we can make a difference in London We promote built environment sector diversity - we can only build London if we represent it ourselves. London has also adopted Climate budgeting which was directly inspired by Oslo’s approach.

 

For Barcelona, Dr Barbara Pons Giner, CEO of Barcelona Regional, spoke on Reactivating and Reimagining Barcelona.Barcelona is a city that is small in size but with abundant soft power. The city has only 1.7M inhabitants in an area of 100km2. 

Over recent times Barcelona has reinvented itself using large events as catalysts: international exhibitions, The Olympic Games in 1992, The Mobile World Congress, The Americas Cup in 2024, and many more. 

 

Barcelona is now developing longer range plans to drive a more coherent regional approach with its ongoing plans for 2035-2050.The focus now is on the larger ‘regional Barcelona’ with 160 municipalities, and 5M people. A2050 vision will be presented next year.

 

Barcelona faces the challenge of creating a cohesive metropolitan area, a process similar to London's efforts in urban governance. Barcelona Regional is a public planning agency that was created in post-Olympic Barcelona and is now driving new ways to re-conceive the whole region.

 

Major transformations of streets, a shift from cars to pedestrians, to neighbourhood space and the block scale are underway. Barcelona lacks an integrated strategic plan like the London Plan, but has many plans. They key issue to integrate, and implement them. 

There are three key areas where Barcelona Regional gets involved to bring plans to implementation:Translation, Trust and Time: Translation between different disciplines and plans, trust among all stakeholders involved, and managing time, which means coordinating short term “quick wins” with a medium and long term vision. The medium term is 2035; the longer term is 2050. Barcelona Regional is bringing forwards new ways of working that reinvent planning for the metropolitan region. 

 

The Barcelona React (Reactivate) Conference in 2023 generated new ideas about the city post Covid. In Spring 2025 this has led to a new ideas platform to bring innovations into the city. The focus is on sustainable design, climate adaptation, and engaging diverse sectors in strategic planning. The city is addressing climate change, energy transition, and housing accessibility, with particular attention to transforming the coastline in response to rising sea levels.

 

The "superblock" strategy: prioritising pedestrian spaces over cars, is proceeding well despite initial resistance from residents and businesses. Public participation continues to be a core focus, with events like Barcelona React, which encourages community input into urban planning.

 

 
For Oslo, Øyvind Såtvedt, Assistant Director General at Oslo City Government, introduced the fastest growing capital city in Europe, and home of the Nobel Peace Prize. Oslo has 720,500 city inhabitants, with 2.3 mil in Greater Metropolitan area. 

 

The end of a long industrial cycle in the 80s and 90s meant that Oslo needed a new basis for its economy, shifting from an industrial city to a knowledge based city. As a consequence significant changes have occurred since the 1980s, with Oslo’s waterfront repurposed to host cultural institutions, and knowledge-based industries. Oslo’s rapid population growth, and economic shift towards innovation, are key to its fresh identity as a "new world city." 

 

The climate agenda is a key driver of change. Oslo needed to be a frontrunner, so invested in its innovative climate budget that measures all CO2 emissions. Sustainability is at the heart of Oslo’s reinvention agenda: with the climate budget, zero-emission public transport, 100% EV, fossil fuel free construction sites, and a deep commitment to carbon capture.

 

Oslo’s social inclusivity initiatives, particularly in addressing issues of crime and youth integration in suburban areas, can inform urban development strategies in other cities. The people friendly city and innovation are key drivers. Innovation districts like those in Barcelona have been a basis for change in the city. The New Opera House is for everyone.

 

Additionally, Oslo needed to find its place on the global stage. In 2010 Oslo found it was not well known in the world and was losing skilled workers and opportunities to other cities. It needed to fill that gap with a fresh identity and a reputation and brand management strategy. 

 

The city opted for a ‘values based strategy’ which defined what was special about Oslo. It is a city that is Pioneering - new technology, explorers, cancer research, climate solutions and policies, Enriching - welfare state supporting people’s lives, social mobility, and access to culture and nature, and Real - direct, down to earth, straight forwards, ‘what you see is what you get’. The purpose here was to give Oslo a precise character that showed its unique qualities and differentiated it from other Nordic cities.  This is a repositioning of the city. 

 

 

Stephen Barrett, Director at RSHP, commented on Reinventing Paris. He observed that that 2014 initiative had unleashed a wave of initiatives across the city.  He outlined the contrasts in approach to strategic urban planning between London and Paris : 

 

 

French city planning is increasingly focused on climate and carbon issues, with Paris adopting ambitious climate and social plans, including a climate policy for all development and strict targets aiming to deliver public housing. Development in both cities reveal the importance of resilient masterplans that can withstand political shifts, and the challenges of integrating the broader metropolitan area. In the Paris Region, there is more marked inequality and a greater contrast in levels of investment between centre and periphery than you find in London. This is one of the reasons behind the Grand Paris Express which is designed to connect with circumferential routes, the inner and outer peripheries of the metropolis. 

 

Our panel discussion was fascinating. 

 

One themes was on tall buildings and London’s Polycentric Development. Do we need taller buildings still, and if so where? London’s polycentricity is growing. Economic activity is now spreading across local centres, enhancing resilience and reducing carbon footprints. London’s commercial and cultural sectors remain centred in areas like Oxford Street, but neighbourhoods such as Stratford and White City are emerging as innovation hubs. Addressing the housing crisis requires increased housing density, potentially through the addition of taller buildings. The integration of diverse sectors, including life sciences, culture, and education, continues to shape London's evolving urban landscape. 

 

There was a discussion on Barcelona’s Superblock Strategy. It was a controversial initiative when first introduced, aimed at creating pedestrian-first areas by limiting car access so as to create playgrounds, walkways, sports venues, gardens, and nature in places which had previously been roads, using the block format to close the smaller roads between the major roads. Although it initially met with resistance, the strategy has been internationally praised for its bold approach to urban space. However, local challenges such as gentrification and air quality issues persist, with ongoing monitoring needed to ensure the success of the initiative. 

 

We debated Financing Urban Development. Should there be a larger role for pension funds in supporting urban development project? These funds have been significant investors in UK infrastructure, but challenges around ensuring adequate returns and managing the complexities of long-term financing remain. The government continues to explore new mechanisms to engage pension funds in further development projects. 

 

All of this led to some final reflections on Reimagining Cities. Øyvind Såtvedt stressed the importance of social inclusion in Oslo, particularly in suburban areas where crime and integration remain concerns. Stephen Barrett underlined the challenges facing UK planning, advocating for a more streamlined, French-inspired approach. Phil Graham focussed on London’s need to adapt to its changing economy, focusing on net zero and inclusivity as critical elements of its reinvention. Barbara Pons Giner proposed better governance and coordinated planning in Barcelona in needed address the big drivers in the future.  

 

Overall, this event showed that city, and indeed regional, reinvention is alive and well. Since the GFC and the COVID 19 pandemic, a multiplicity of new agendas that go beyond the imperative to retrofit post-industrial cities have emerged. The new spatial dynamics of economy, and inequality within urban regions, are deepened by remote, virtual, hybrid, and nomadic ways of working and consuming. These are coupled and accelerated with climate peril, affordability challenges, and economic transition. This make for a powerful impulse to change, especially in the context of ongoing population growth in metropolitan areas. Ultimately, it leads to a need to rethink the orientations of city centres, towns, suburbs, and rural areas, and the relationships between them, to find coherent paths for the future.