IN EARLY June seven performers danced among 1,080 fountains to mark the opening of a new public space in London. Granary Square, part of the redevelopment around King's Cross Station, sits in front of the new premises of the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. The building and the square gracefully update the area's industrial heritage: ancient brick contrasts thrillingly with soaring glass; wide stone steps lead from the square down to the Regent's Canal, where barges once travelled. Trees, benches, food stalls and performances welcome passers-by. It is the best example yet of London's improving public spaces.

In 2004 Jan Gehl, a Danish urban designer whose “Life Between Buildings” is the textbook on public space, produced a report on London. It was unflattering, calling London a city “where car is king” and many great public spaces, including Trafalgar Square, had become mere roundabouts. It was also influential.

Institutional, as well as intellectual, change helped. In 2000 London got an elected mayor—the first time the whole sprawling city had a single official to think about its well-being. Economic shifts also encouraged civic improvement. As people gained more leisure time, tourism was becoming more important to London's economy. Cities that are pleasant to wander in attract more tourists. Decent public space became an economic necessity.

Ken Livingstone, London's first mayor, partially pedestrianised Trafalgar Square. It was decided that the “fourth plinth”—the only one without an historical grandee on it—should display temporary, contemporary art. He also introduced a congestion charge on cars entering the city centre, which reduced traffic. Some of the extra road-space created was used to widen pavements. The next mayor, Boris Johnson, created a nearly free cycle bank to encourage people to abandon their cars.

The private sector, meanwhile, had cottoned on to the fact that pleasant public space is profitable. Sir Stuart Lipton, a developer, started it with Broadgate, a circular shopping-and-meeting venue in the City. Others followed. Monmouth Street in Covent Garden became a model, as a brick-paved lane free of ugly street furniture, where welcoming seats outside attractive shops and cafés tempt people to hang around and offload their cash. “Developers constantly ask us to do something like Monmouth Street,” says Lucy Musgrave, founder of Publica, which advises clients on creating public spaces.

Arts institutions, too, started thinking harder about the space around them. The Southbank Centre, a forbidding post-war concrete complex formerly visited only by serious culture consumers, has been transformed. Bleak grey terraces have sprouted gardens, and music and markets enhance a new riverside walk from Vauxhall to Tate Modern (where a rather unpleasant 20-foot anatomical sculpture by Damien Hirst now greets visitors approaching the museum). This stretch south of the Thames has become the city's most popular destination for weekend wandering.

Not everybody, however, is delighted. Problems arise when public spaces are overused. According to Nicholas Penny, director of the National Gallery, which lies on the north side of Trafalgar Square, “the chief result of pedestrianisation has been the trashing of a civic space.” He is particularly troubled by the loud public events held in the square, which do not encourage the contemplative appreciation of art.

A more ideological strand of objection points out that many spaces made available to the public—such as Granary Square and More London, an area of offices and shops on the riverbank by City Hall—are actually owned by the developers. To Anna Minton, author of “Ground Control”, the privatisation of public space is insidious, for it is driven by profit, not community feeling, and involves a heavy presence of security guards, CCTV monitoring and keeping out the unwashed.

But for the washed, who quite like shopping and safety, such space is a great deal better than nothing. Not all developers bother. Workers in Paddington Basin, for instance, a dismal office development by the station, struggle to find a sandwich at lunchtime or a bench to eat it on.

Despite the improvements, Mr Gehl is not hugely impressed with London's progress. Trafalgar Square, he points out, still has traffic on three sides. Compared with other cities, he says, “I don't think much has been done.” Progress in New York, by contrast—the pedestrianisation of Times and Madison Squares and the creation of a citywide cycling network—is “amazing”.

The problem comes down to governance. While New York's mayor is all-powerful, London's shares power with 32 boroughs, which often have conflicting agendas. Visions are hard to realise without real power.