WITHOUT Walls is the new name of the project to draw up a vision for York.

The title is apt in more than a "think out of the box", management consultant-speak sort of way. Because it also reminds us that, if a former York council had had its way, this would have been a city literally without walls.

Long before New Labour, the Victorians fancied themselves as great modernists, and this mania spread to York Corporation. They were all set to pull down the city walls, dratted confining things that they are, until the artist William Etty mounted a campaign to stop them. He won. That's why we put up a statue of him.

I hope those who meet to consider York's future next month reflect on this salutary tale. It shows that grand designs can sometimes be huge disasters.

If the 19th century councillors had demolished York's walls, they would have secured their place in history all right. They would have been remembered not as forward-thinking reformers - but as mindless cultural vandals. Imagine it: York's fortifications, a fixture since Roman times, reduced to rubble by Bob the Dickensian Builder.

It is so easy to get swept up in the pursuit of the "Big Idea". Everyone has the desire to make their mark, to leave something behind: and it massages a certain sort of ego to think they may be associated with some majestic monument or illustrious building. But for every St Paul's Cathedral and Angel Of The North, there is a Millennium Dome and an Unmade Bed.

Those involved in York's Without Walls project want fresh ideas. Here's one: don't think big, think small.

Many small things are special. Satsumas. The 12 episodes of Fawlty Towers (as opposed to a trillion Friends). The original Mini, not that fat-bummed charmless modern motor.

And York's appeal has much to do with its size. People love this city because you can walk from one side to the other, getting to know every snickleway and street in the process.

If York had not drifted into the doldrums a few centuries back, it would probably have expanded until it resembled modern Edinburgh, with its huge Victorian banks and river-wide streets. But rather than a sprawling city, I prefer to live in a large town fighting above its weight.

Because the centre is based on the medieval street pattern, designed when a trip to Strensall was a daunting prospect, York has retained its human scale. And our surroundings have a profound impact on all of us. That is why York people are renowned for their friendliness, and natives of anonymous London denounced for their rudeness.

So it is vital we think small. We should strive to protect small, independent shops, rather than squash them with outrageous rate and rent demands before replacing them with mall monsters.

We should pay attention to the small community details such as children's playgrounds and neighbourhood centres for young and old. We should keep the little local pub and save the suburban post office. And we should not, must not, build enormous, towering apartment blocks and shopping centres which distort the scale of our city.

Seven storeys in Hungate? Five storeys in Skeldergate? These are wrong, hugely wrong, for York.

The city has a few large buildings, other than the Minster, which truly add to the cityscape: the railway headquarters springs to mind. But we never want another seven-storey Westgate Development on Leeman Road. This looks as though it has been catapulted onto our bewildered city by vengeful aliens.

Remember, this "luxury" lump was marketed as "the New York of York". Ugh. This is no Big Apple but a little gem. And we should keep it that way.

Updated: 09:43 Friday, November 15, 2002