Richard Rogers: Imagine a city designed for all the people

From a speech by the architect at a conference on urban regeneration held in London

Cities can be the most beautiful and joyful manifestations of civilisation. But they can also be socially polarised, physically squalid and environmentally destructive.

New vitality has been achieved in many city centres through lottery-funded cultural infrastructure, but projects such as the Baltic in Gateshead, Tate Modern in London and the Lowry and the Imperial War Museum in Salford will not benefit deprived communities unless we can achieve integrated, design-led housing renewal.

Today there is the understanding that social and environmental sustainability can only be achieved by embracing the concept of the compact city. This concept has huge implications, in particular the need to redress the balance of two generations' legacy of car-based planning. The devastating effect on our inner-city areas – which have seen a mass exodus to the suburbs – cannot be ignored.

London and the South-east are seeing house prices soar out of the reach of low- and middle-income people, while many urban areas in the Midlands and the north of England are stuck in a spiral of market failure. We need to create places where people want to live within our cities, recycling disused buildings and putting in place the transport infrastructure that will allow the development of high-quality, high-density housing around this integrated transportation network.

Why can't government itself adopt a joined-up approach to its own property and surplus land? Urban renaissance is within our reach; neither the need nor the opportunity has been greater.