How to be a Happy Architect

Marketing images of the city account for the majority of officially published material, yet represent a fraction of the reality of life in Leeds Photograph: PR

Queens Arcade, the crown in Leeds retail empire, was one of the earliest developments in the 1990s boom period but remains unmatched in quality by the many developments that followed Photograph: Leeds city council/Leeds city council

Leeds' Corn Exchange was converted into successful speciality shops, creating somewhere that attracted youth culture to the centre of the city. Closure earlier this year to make room for a food hall swept away yet another element of diversity Photograph: Leeds city council/Leeds city council

The city was unprepared for flooding in 2007 and is still unprepared. It will take many more floods before local authorities accept the need to rapidly adapt to climate change Photograph: PR

The station concourse in Leeds is rapidly approaching full capacity, and the carbon emissions need to be reduced by 80%, yet there are no visionary plans in the making to suggest new movement infrastructure Photograph: Leeds city council/Leeds city council

The deprived area of Armley overlooks Leeds' booming city centre only 500 metres away. Such photos are never acknowledged by the city, despite the expressed desire in the City Vision to "bridge the poverty gap". Crime is related not to poverty but to differential incomes - we are building places for social unrest Photograph: Irena Bauman/Irena Bauman

Saxton Gardens, 200 metres from the booming city centre, highlight the divide between wealth and poverty in 2007. Now refurbishment by Urban Splash has begun to convert this council housing into private apartments. This will relocate the divide instead of eradicating it Photograph: PR

A Leeds market trader in 2008. The outdoor market is due for redevelopment - the cheapest stalls will be reduced in size to release site for deep plan commercial blocks, despite the need to increase opportunities for cheap trading and make the poor welcome in the city Photograph: Rachel Codling/Rachel Codling

A heel bar and key cutting kiosk in the market – one of the few remaining recycling and repairing businesses left in the city centre economy Photograph: Rachel Codling/Rachel Codling

There are still some 30 tailors' workshops in Leeds, but we have almost forgot their value to repair, recycle and remodel. In the world that is adapting to climate change, these skills need to be reintroduced into the school curriculum and the few traditional workshops assisted to expand Photograph: Rachel Codling/Rachel Codling

A traditional market café - one of few places where people for adjacent communities congregate in the city centre Photograph: Rachel Codling/Rachel Codling

Typical residential development in city centre. In the last 15 years, more than 7,000 tiny one and two bedroom apartments have been built in the centre that has no infrastructure to support a residential population Photograph: Irena Bauman/Irena Bauman

Brewery Wharf, a gated community typical of the residential developments Photograph: Irena Bauman/Irena Bauman

Meaningless gestures of public art covering a communication tower (to the left of this picture), and 60s office tower converted into apartments is crowned with a quaff. Would the creativity and finance be better spent on more substantial infrastructure for the future? Photograph: Irena Bauman/Irena Bauman

Meaningless public art - this shows an example of disconnection between the intention and the reality Photograph: Irena Bauman/Irena Bauman

Poor quality private "public art" at Leeds general infirmary - unfiltered, and unstrategic Photograph: PR

For comparison, an example of public art in Madrid, a confident city that represents its civic pride through acknowledging the most everyday element of its successful public realm - the sweepers Photograph: Irena Bauman/Irena Bauman

An example of community activism in the Chapel Allerton area of Leeds, where a group of residents took over a neglected scrap of land and converted it over one weekend - in the pouring rain - into a small "pocket park" Photograph: Irena Bauman/Irena Bauman

The residents who made the pocket park. Penny Sanders (fourth from the left) has since set up - and now helps run - an arts centre called 7 in Chapel Allerton. The greatest power of transformation is within the community itself and local authorities need to learn how to tap into this resource and facilitate it Photograph: Irena Bauman/Irena Bauman

The pocket park is in constant use Photograph: Irena Bauman/Irena Bauman