If you think of ‘the European city’ you tend to think of an old city. Only rarely is this term associated with the new cities that developed half a century ago and that at the time were considered to be the European answer to both the congestion of the old cities and the resulting suburbanisation. The old cities attract millions of visitors every year. They are centres of culture and recreation. The fact that Euro Disney is situated in Marne-la-Vallee does not contribute to the popularity of this new city itself; for most people, it is first and foremost Disneyland Paris. The old cities are also the engines of the new economy, driven by knowledge, creativity and innovation, and are the old continent's best hope in its efforts to compete with the ‘emerging markets’.

The urbanity of the European city is tremendously popular, and over the past years the focus of this interest has shifted from the busy commercial city centres to the surrounding districts, the creative living and working environments. These small-scale, multifunctional urban villages – city districts with an almost village-like quality, along the lines of Jane Jacobs’ Greenwich Village – are increasingly the destinations of city trips. This typical type of urbanity has grown to represent the ultimate benchmark in urbanity, one that every other place in Europe's urbanised landscape is measured against.

In addition to the old cities, Europe has a number of new cities which were designed in the 1960s, and realised in large part in the following decades. The new cities are clearly distinct from the urbanity that characterises the old city. Where once they were the embodiment of an urban ideal that was intended to transcend the flaws of the old city, they now seem to have become the black sheep of the urban family. They are even depicted as having been a planning failure which contributed to the decline of the old city and formed an obstacle to growth and regeneration. However, the question is whether the old cities can survive without the capacity for innovation that has characterised the new cities since their conception.