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What makes some places succeed while others fail? In evaluating thousands of public spaces around the world, PPS has found that successful ones have four key qualities: they are accessible; people are engaged in activities there; the space is comfortable and has a good image; and finally, it is a sociable place: one where people meet each other and take people when they come to visit. PPS developed The Place Diagram as a tool to help people in judging any place, good or bad:

Public advertising is pollution and it needs to be curbed. So insists a new policy from Barcelona, which will substantially cut back on how much advertising City Hall permits in public places. In a bid to make Barcelona a more attractive, less aesthetically cluttered place, street advertising in the city will be reduced by 20 percent in July 2016.

Getting the right city density - generally expressed in the US as people per square mile or homes per acre - to support sustainable and pleasant living is one of the trickiest problems we face as we address the future of our communities. The typically low densities of suburban sprawl built in the last half of the 20th century, despite their popularity at the time with a considerable share of the market, have been shown by a voluminous body of research to produce unsustainable rates of driving, carbon emissions, pollution. stormwater runoff, and adverse health impacts.

As transport commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan faced down critics to transform New York with 400 miles of cycling routes, a bike share scheme and the remodelling of Times Square. Any city can do it, she tells Peter Walker