by Alan Simpson. Prof Simpson is an architect and Professor of Urbanism. In 2010 he produce the "York: New City Beautiful" report for City of York Council.

All cities are ideas ultimately. They create themselves and the rest of the world acknowledges them - or ignores them.

York has been a good idea. Its Roman, medieval, Georgian and twentieth century streets and buildings have provided a powerful sense of history and place, a backdrop to a rich civic life. A place to do business, to socialise and a place to just 'be'.

The railways and confectionary brought industry to York, to good economic and social effect. But one twentieth century feature has gone beyond the beneficial and become a serious problem for the city’s amenity, appearance, and importantly its health: the private motor car.

York today is overburdened with traffic, heavily polluted and virtually treeless. It provides inadequate links between public transport, public parks, major attractions and the university. Its streets are not places to dwell, offering little beyond ‘shopping’.

It's one of the country’s best Roman, medieval and Georgian settings, with 2000 years of history visible in its streets. But it has for decades been swamped by the unrelenting impact of the private motor car.

It is – as yet – rarely understood that the economic success of towns and cities relies upon so much in the urban setting beyond the purely economic. Economies are not isolated components within cities, but are essentially a part of the rich complexity that comprises cities and city life.

Economies are reliant upon the culture and traditions of cities as well as upon their efficiency. Economies depend on its streets as arteries for movement, and upon its spaces as settings for public life.

Most of all, economies rely on the city's communities and civic life – its people and their ability to pursue rich and meaningful lives in business, in the day-to-day life of the place. This needs places for play and pleasure set against healthy and beautiful surroundings.

In the 1960s, although recognised for its historic and archaeological significance, York was a 'smaller' place than it is today – not just in terms of population.

York was at that time a city far from the international tourist trail on which it sits today. It didn't have the university now ranked in the top 100 in the world, nor the quality shopping centre we now see.

It didn't have the ambition to become more widely recognized for its culture, its ability to do business, its desire to teach and carry out research at the highest level, and for its physical attractiveness - its beauty - which welcomes and entertains the visitor in a manner most UK towns and cities fail to achieve.

What has been lacking is that quality in ‘public place’ and ‘public space’ that many comparable European cities are now creating to great effect and benefit. Freiburg is a good example. Across Europe cities are creating green, healthy and beautiful settings - and restricting the private car through much improved public transport.

They are achieving this through low impact interventions over time and through a declaration to the world of those intentions. It is as much for thinking strategically over time measured in decades that is enhancing and establishing Freiburg's reputation.

York might do the same, and the efforts at Lendal Bridge, Exhibition Square and Gillygate are clearly the way forward.

Quality of place matters to businesses making decisions about where to locate and invest. It matters to residents as a living space and a place to live, and matters to the visitor – to enjoy, to learn, to invest and to come back. We need to think how our twenty-first century layer contributes to York's fabric.

How we develop our economy, culture and physical setting can reaffirm our importance nationally and internationally. We need a city with a vision of the future - a New City Beautiful.