Najaf and Milton Keynes. Photographs:Jim MacMillan/AP (left) and Dan Chung/Guardian
The planning firm that brought us Milton Keynes is to reshape the Iraqi city of Najaf.
On the face of it, the appointment of Llewelyn Davies Yeang to rebuild the holy city is an odd one: the two places couldn't be more different. Milton Keynes is a purpose-built new town less than 40 years old, famous for its concrete cows and roundabouts; Najaf was founded in the eighth century and is famous for the tomb of Iman Ali, whom Shia Muslims regard as the founder of their religion.
Richard Llewelyn Davies and others designed Milton Keynes around the car, in a series of grids modelled on Los Angeles. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and still has its fans. But like the Iraq war, Milton Keynes is now regarded by many as an American-influenced mistake.
"It takes the worst of North American planning and does it even worse," commented one recent visitor. These days, those running Llewelyn Davies Yeang might agree with that - in private, at least.
The firm's founder died in 1981, and its modern directors have very different ideas about urban planning. They talk about giving priority to pedestrians, bicycles and public transport rather than the car. (They have already suggested setting up a park-and-ride scheme in Najaf to handle the number of pilgrims to the city.) And in place of the zoning used in Milton Keynes, where residential areas were strictly separated from shopping areas, the firm now believes in mixed developments.
All this is in line with a new orthodoxy that says town planning should be about creating vibrant, sustainable communities of the kind promoted by the deputy prime minister, John Prescott. Indeed Llewelyn Davies (as the firm was still known until recently) wrote the Urban Design Compendium, the government's official guide to town planning.
How this will help in Najaf is unclear: according to the guide, the first principle of good urban design is to create places that must be "safe, comfortable, varied and attractive". Najaf is currently so unsafe that the firm is not even allowed to set foot in the place. It must rely instead on Iraqi consultants for assessments of the conditions in the city.
This breaks another of the compendium's principles: getting to know a place inside out and designing in collaboration with local people. It says: "Collaborative planning ensures attention to local concerns and reduces possible antagonism from local communities to change."
In Najaf, local antagonism is likely to prove more of a challenge than usual.
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