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The European City of the Year Award

Dublin

I talk. You talk. We talk. The words
Somehow hang in the air and turn
Like memories turn and ideas turn
And gradually the talk makes a city.

I walk. You walk. We walk. The walk
Takes us over the river and through the streets
That are living streets and singing streets
And slowly the walk makes a city.

I look. You sit. I laugh. You point
Out the view from Stephen’s Green
And the trees are green and the talk is green
And the look and the walk and the streets
And the laugh and the point and the ideas
And the sit and the memories
Make a city.

Edinburgh (winner)

This is a city where history
Layers on history and stone
Layers on stone and walking
Breeds walking down a narrow close
Into a vista that makes you gasp
As vista piles on vista and the trains
Pull into Waverley and vista piles
On history piles on stone piles
On stories piles on legends piles
On Old Town piles on New Town
On a city built on history
And ready for tomorrow.

London

If my task today is to try to squeeze
London into these few urban lines
I’ll have to think of all the languages
That sing in this city from across the map;
That whisper like a stream, gush like a tap.

This is a city built on sentences,
On arguments and on reflections,
On points of view and intersections
Imagined and real: high rises of the soul
With train line, palace, office block, school

Park, theatre, bus stop, river
An A to Z that goes on for ever.

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The Great Town Award

Lincoln

You see the Cathedral first as you drive into the city
And words fail you; your mouth becomes an O
And what can you say ? It’s not nice, it’s not pretty,
It’s bigger words than that, words that sing more.

Then the calf-stretching walk up Steep Hill to the top
And words fail again; I should get out my pad
And draw these delights as my jaw starts to drop
And descriptive words die in the void in my head.

Should I dance it, or sculpt my response to this place?
This city, you see, is a true work of art
An ecstatic effusion of stone, light and space
That nurtures the soul, and transplants the heart.

Ludlow (winner)

‘The most perfect town in England’ Betjeman said, and he should know.
He had an eye and an ear for England;
For English light, for that English glow
As the River Teme and a Shropshire sky
Combine in a perfect Ludlow way
And as the sun goes down and the night clouds fly

You can wallow at the end of a Ludlow day
In Ludlow Sausage and Ludlow Cheese
And a pint of a perfect local beer
And the sound of laughter carried on the breeze
From people just happy that they’re here.
From the Castle down to Old Street, Ludlow is the place
To put heaven in your belly and a smile upon your face!

St Ives

The best place to take in the air is St.Ives!
Where artistic people lead artistic lives!
Buzzing like artistic bees buzz in hives!

The sea is the backdrop, the sea and the sky!
As the streets seem to shimmer, the clouds seem to fly!
In a good way, this place is like watching paint dry!

But the paint never dries on this jewel of a town
As the leaves turn from green to that rare Cornish brown
Reinvention’s the name in these streets of reknown!

For a place like St Ives simply cannot sit still!
It’s a triumph of energy, triumph of will!
It’s a gorgeous pot plant on the World’s window-sill!

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The Great Neighbourhood Award

Clifton, Bristol

Hold your arms wide apart, like this,
Like a fisherman praising a fish
To describe that incredible bridge.

Then bring your hands together this way
To applaud Clifton’s buildings, each day
Renewed by light and cloud interplay.

Then stand on a corner and think
Of this ‘place on a hill’, this link
With the past and the future; drink

In the views that astonish the brain;
Then turn round a corner and drink them again!

Clerkenwell, London

Come here to eat, come here to drink,
As the sun sets on the city then come down here to think
About what Clerkenwell is, and how we can define it
How we can undilute it, and preserve it, and refine it
And help it to develop and never to stand still;
And sing a hymn of praise to Clerkenwell!

Come here to see, come here to be seen
As the day gets filled to bursting and the hours in between
Glow with what this marvellous district has to offer
It’s a star in evening skies, or a gold coin in a coffer.
There’s nowhere you can get a smarter, cooler urban thrill
Than the shining destination that we call Clerkenwell!

Merchant City, Glasgow (winner)

Looked at on a map this is a tight net of streets
But it’s more than that. Much more.
It’s the sound of laughter, and the age old sound
Of music leaking through an open door
And the music is the music of renewal;
A tune that sounds different every single day
As the lessons of history from that hard, hard school
Are learned; not forgotten, not tidied away.
Looked at on the map this is angles and lines
But the reality’s shifting, the reality moves
From a warehousescape where the moonlight shines
And lights up a vista that needs a good scrub
To a web of renewal, an idea made real,
A vast global menu, a cultural hub

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The Great Street Award

Bricklane, London

Look at this lane, built brick-by-brick
Into a market, a magical space, a gathering of voices
A joyful dove-from-a-top-hat trick
A celebration of difference, multiplicity of choices

And the very best curry you’ll ever taste!

Look at this lane, built brick-by-brick
It’s an example of how a place might function;
How ideas and concepts, once thrown, might stick
And there’s never just the obvious turn at the junction…

And the very best bagel you’ll ever taste!

So raise a glass to the place they call Brick Lane;
Delightful in the sunshine, exciting in the rain!

Marylebone High Street, London (winner)

You can see this street from high up in space,
See the coffee cups catching the light
And the spoons and the plates and the outdoor tables
Long into the Summer night.

This is High Street as bloodstream, street as connection.
Streetlife and real life and streetlife as home;
Meeting and talking and walking and shopping,
As vital as New York, as stylish as Rome.

If this street didn’t exist you could dream it to life:
A street that contains all the things you could need
To live in a city in this gleaming century:
High street manifesto and new High Street creed.

Royal Mile, Edinburgh

The wind fresh, the air clear
The air clear, the wind fresh

You feel like royalty walking up here:
At Festival time in a leafleted rush
Or on a silent afternoon
With the castle like a promise

And the Camera Oscura
Holding streetlife up to share,
And the Parliament’s modern majesty
Like a new vessel on an old shore.

This feels more like a lifetime than a mile
In the best way, of course;
The stone old, the sky true,
Each walk up here sees the mile renewed.

The wind fresh, the air clear
The air clear, the wind fresh

the stone old, the sky true
Each walk up here sees the mile renewed…

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The Great Place Award

Borough Market, London (winner)

Borough Market is a place for the senses,
A crashing, dancing, shifting, moving density
Of people and foodstuffs, families and bargains,
A celebration of interaction, a huge immensity
Of sights, sounds and smells, touching and tasting
Where everything’s valued and nothing is wasting
And in a world where the click of a desk-bound mouse
Is the way that we shop without leaving the house
This is shopping as theatre, shopping as life force
If shopping is racing then here comes the lead horse!
If shopping is opera then the fat lady’s singing!
If shopping’s celebration then get those bells ringing!
Borough Market’s the place and now is the time
And if shopping’s a poem then this market’s the rhyme!

Brindley Place, Birmingham

Winter Brindley; canal shines in the low sun
And reflects the crowds shopping for Christmas,
And sitting at tables eating something lovely
And drinking in change and the way places prosper.

Spring Brindley: new ideas in new offices
Ready to grow as the year turns and grows;
From this old city now comes the new thinking,
New changing, new landscapes, new ways to work.

Summer Brindley: now this is the time
For an idea like Brindley to prosper and thrive
For the streetlife, the fountainscapes, the people
Who walk here and work here and make it alive!

Autumn Brindley: on a delicious September afternoon
You watch children by the fountain and think of the future
And the lights go on in an office at twilight
And yes, Brindley Place is shining and smiling.

St Stephen's Green, Dublin

This green is a lung for a city,
This green is a place to walk and think,
And sit and listen to the poets being witty
Because poetry in Dublin flows like drink

And this green is a poem in an urban setting,
This green is a poem that scans and rhymes
Where you talk about remembering and forgetting
And you sit and sing about bygone times

Because every city needs a green like this
To pause for a moment in the city’s throng
This green is a smile and this green is a kiss
And Dublin is the city where St. Stephen’s Green belongs…

For more information about The Urbanism Awards, please contact the Academy on 020 7251 877 or here to email a member of the team

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