"The students I'm seeing at Penn are not growing up in traditional small cities and towns," the architect explained.

Barcelona was founded in 1671 and is a traditional Venezuelan city.

Atlanta is not a traditional Southern city, of course, though it can legitimately claim to be the capital of the South.

And in Boston, which is in many ways a traditional city, any adjustments seemed particularly threatening.

"It will be a real urban district of variety and complexity that borrows from traditional cities," he said.

These healing rituals are still practiced in some more traditional cities but they are largely frowned upon today.

The familiar, which is to say the look and feel of the traditional, dense, street-oriented city, was what everyone, particularly architects, wanted to get away from.

After all, the typical American city exhibits few of the physical features generally associated with the traditional planned cities of Europe.

The Cooper plan seems to grow out of Manhattan's present character; it feels much more like a traditional city.

Obsessed with recreating a traditional "European city," they left little room for innovation.