This book aims to demonstrate the new awareness concerning the urban environment in Europe. The authors believe that the unlimited outward expansion of our cities must be halted and that we should strive for "inner growth" within urban centres, and for a more human approach to city development. Contact between city dwellers should be encouraged to reduce the isolation of those living in sprawling communities and to remedy the evils resulting from the dispersion of urban functions. To achieve this the book puts forward a number of planning and design criteria which would solve more satisfactorily the problems of housing and living conditions in cities.