Much blood has been spilt in the alleyways and wastegrounds of the Liverpool media this year concerning the city's emerging Tall Buildings Policy. To many, the effects of this supplementary planning guidance are a welcome drop of bromide in the waters of a pumped-up and over-excited planning system, to others a missed opportunity to create a kind of planning Viagra for the New Liverpool.

The glazed Standards under which these battles have been fought: Alexandra, Brunswick, Chieftain - are a nod perhaps to more heroic times but offer a clue to the spirit of the contest. The mythology of modern Liverpool has yet to be written and the victors have yet to be determined. But at street level, what kind of Liverpool do we wish to create? Like Sparta, will Liverpool remain a city built on its people rather than its buildings?

Changing patterns of global trade and the legacy of May 1941 left Liverpool with the kind of headache that required a very different kind of medicine. Liverpool's hangover was the consequence of a city that had partied hard and fast for over two hundred years and enjoyed the very best company, culture and commerce. The euphoria slowly subsided with the inexorable movement of container shipping and left a city littered with a spectacular flotsam and jetsam of wonderful buildings, music - and the odd Rembrandt. Half the city's population took up and left.

Fast forward to 2005. Liverpool is moving forward, and fast. Commercial rental values are approaching the £20 sq ft threshold and there has been an 85% growth in the number of planning applications. Admissions across all of Liverpool's Universities (and there are now three of them) have risen by over 10%. In just 26 months we shall be dusting the family silver rather than flogging it. Oh and then there was the small matter of a soccer match in Istanbul in May watched by 200 million people. The L-word which had previously dare not speak its name is now on everyone's lips - and everybody wants a piece of the action.

Serendipity continues to bless Liverpool. The city is approaching its octocentennial year in 2007 and has a couple of billion quid of development cash in its pocket to celebrate. Whether it is consequence or coincidence with 2007/8 that Liverpool is entering a construction boom is uncertain. As England's only Celtic city and with a host of overseas investors waiting in the wings perhaps we do indeed have the luck of the Irish. Liverpool appears to be having its day yet again, but are we so sure we are rebuilding the city on solid foundations?

In 1963, the eyes of the world were again on Liverpool as its musicians and poets bewitched a generation, the city had yet to start much of the major rebuilding programmes and photographs of the streets offer a tantalising glance of the old Liverpool. Many of the downtown streets were still cobbled, tram wires still clung to buildings in places. Alleyways and backstreets hidden from view and snaking between Victorian warehouses lurked behind the more splendid facades of Dale Street. The Mighty Mersey was already loosing her grip on the life of the city but despite this, the cultural phenomenon that would grip the world was just around the corner, and Shankland's redevelopment masterplan that would see Old Hall Street transformed, the construction of St John's Beacon and the creation in parts of an inner ring road at the heart of the city, was starting. Those that grew in Liverpool in the 60's knew what it was like to feel the streets teeming with people and to breathe in the heady air of Merseybeat. For a provincial northern city Liverpool was punching well above its weight and how remarkable it was to be part of it.

Twenty years on and Liverpool was making quite different headlines. In time we might look back at this period and see it in the richer context of the ongoing narrative of the city. It is a city first and foremost with a story to tell - albeit with some darker chapters. It would have been difficult perhaps to predict the extent of the fall and of course, who wants to spoil the party? Some lessons for 21st century Liverpool remain then if only to ensure we aren't condemned to repeat the past.

Liverpool is learning of course not to put all its eggs into one investment basket. When the Port put bread in the mouths of tens of thousands of dockers, little wonder the devastating effect containerisation had on the city. Sharing lessons from other post-industrial Western cities has resulted in recent major investment in education, tourism, IT, biotech and the creative economy. After a sluggish few years of physical development in the city where inward investment appeared limited to burger joints along the Strand, the city has indeed turned a corner with tower cranes popping their heads along the waterfront and millions of pounds of development in progress.

But the art of building sustainable cities goes beyond the bricks and mortar. Cities are in reality organic, malleable, often chaotic organisms, the product of the many thousands of inter-related creative efforts of its citizens. Whilst architecture is the formal expression of this energy and in some cases a statement of civic pride in the form of art, the buildings are just one aspect. Urban design famously explores the spaces between the buildings, travellers report on the smells of Mumbai, artists feed off the energy of NYC - great cities are often better understood through these subtleties. Effective city governance, planning policies and transport infrastructure are crucial to facilitate the workings of the urban - but often when they anticipate it, the results include Slough, Bracknell, Swindon...

Liverpool has a unique and rightful place as one of the UK's architectural treasure palaces. It has a startling array of pioneering religious and secular buildings, occasionally going States-Side along Water Street and then Greek Revival near the University. It is also by-and-large, a chaotic and largely unplanned city, the changing street patterns on the map reflecting each burgeoning commercial era. The new tall buildings are simply the latest instalment in the thrilling saga.

The real story of Liverpool, and the key to its future, is of course - its people. It is the 300 000 Irish who came to Liverpool in the dark year of 1847. It is the nine million people who emigrated from Liverpool to the New World, many of which stayed and contributed further to our culture. But it is also the dilemma of the 400 000 drop in Liverpool's population since 1931. Few other cities in the world have been as altruistic as Liverpool!

The rich social history of Liverpool, the complexities and nuances of the fabric of the city, the language, accent, buildings, poets, skyscrapers - all of these are a consequence of its people. And every shopkeeper, bar manager, newsvendor, solicitor, politician, entrepreneur and teacher in the city is inter-dependent on the other in that they all contribute economically and culturally to the future survival of Liverpool.

For this reason, Liverpool should have one very simple vision - to rebuild and then grow its population. The city needs to remind itself of its historical affiliation to change and become a cauldron of human vitality, re-born as carnival city and not only as Capital of Culture but as a European Capital. Setting a target of 1 million people within its municipal boundary would lay real foundations of growth, creating employment in the way cities have done so for millennia - opportunity by virtue of human proximity. New wealth and new cultures will follow. So rather than us make War with each other over buildings - let us perhaps make Love in them instead.

© John Elcock September 2005. All Rights Reserved.

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