I have just returned from the launch of Charles Landry’s latest book on his experience of what makes cities successful called Cities of Ambition.   Very often, it’s due to the presence of an effective mayor, as, most famously, in Barcelona, but also, more recently, in Antwerp and Malmo;  or, as in Manchester, an effective and long-lasting CEO.   But, more broadly, it requires a sense of civic ambition.   He doesn’t think it’s an issue of architecture or in the hands of architects – in fact, he’s notably critical of starchitects – but more a matter of soft issues, including the encouragement of new technology.   After all this talk of cities of the future and how to solve problems of the environment, it was slightly surreal to emerge out onto the streets of London, which were 100% gridlocked, and bicycle across London.   I have seldom had a more Darwinian experience of hundreds of novelty bicyclists, including me, dicing with death.