Planning for the Good Life: Aristotle’s City and Ours

Aristotle viewed the city (polis) as a natural human community whose highest purpose is to enable people to live well and cultivate virtue. In his Politics, he famously wrote that a city “comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life.” In other words, while people form cities to meet basic needs and security, a true city justifies itself by providing the conditions for a good life. This ancient perspective sees the city not merely as an 'economic zone' or a place to house people, but as a moral and social environment that allows human potential to flourish. The polis was for him the context in which humans, as "political animals," thrive through cooperation, public debate, and shared notions of the good. A person living completely alone, Aristotle quipped, must be either a beast or a 'god', meaning that normal humans need a civic community to live a life of purpose. Thus, from the outset, Aristotle’s city is normative: it is defined by its goal of promoting virtue and well-being among its citizens.

The Polis, Virtue, and Human-Scaled Community

Aristotle’s normative vision of the polis was closely tied to its human scale and communal life. He observed that the best life for people is lived in community with others, and most particularly in a polis. Aristotle was an advocate for the prudent middle path; he noted that a city should be of a sufficient size to allow citizens the opportunity to engage is public life, while also being small enough that citizens could know one another and participate directly in public life. The classical polis was typically small in scale, often comparable to a walkable town, because it needed to fit the embodied nature of the human person. This  preference for human-scaled sized cities was not an accident: it ensured that the city functioned as a genuine community, where social interaction, debate, and civic friendship could flourish. Public life in such a city, from the market square to the assembly, was meant to cultivate virtues like justice, prudence, and friendship among citizens. Living in a well-ordered city taught individuals to moderate their desires and consider the common good. In Aristotle’s view, flourishing citizens are those who live excellently by performing virtuous activities, and the city’s design and laws should facilitate this.

Applying the Ancient Wisdom to the Modern Day

Although Aristotle wrote in a very different time, his insights support modern arguments for classical urban design which emphasises human scale, cohesive form, community identity, and enduring design. Advocates of traditional urbanism often draw on the “embedded wisdom” of millennia of city-building, which produced “beautiful places created to meet the aspirations of their community". Classic city planning operated on enduring principles of order, proportionality, and respect for context. For example, many historic cities used a legible street grid combined with special focal points for civic buildings and squares. These layouts were human-centric, in line with Aristotle’s idea that a city exists for citizens’ shared life.

Indeed, a hallmark of the 'classic planning' approach is to design streets, blocks and squares in ways that “maximise human mobility and interaction,” rather than just accommodating vehicles. Such human-scaled design fosters encounters on foot, lively public spaces, and a sense of community belonging, conditions that support the civic virtues Aristotle celebrated. Today, walkable cities are widely acknowledged as desirable, yet they are rarely realised in ways that foster enduring community. One might argue that the reason is because many modern planning experts do not sufficiently understand the city's role in shaping character and encouraging friendship among citizens. Too often, the focus falls on providing efficient means of commuting to work and achieving housing targets to cater to large amounts of immigration, while the importance of designing places that foster interpersonal conversation, participation in civic life, and the ability to live in genuine community falls to the wayside.

Additionally, Aristotle understood the importance of stability and shared identity in a polis; he noted that a city’s greatness is not in constant change but in achieving a stable order oriented to the good. Beautiful buildings that last for generations become a backdrop for communal memory and identity. They make the city feel rooted in time, giving citizens pride and a sense of continuity. In practical terms, a stone plaza or a timber-fronted main street can age gracefully and remain a reliable gathering place throughout generations. This durability serves the common good by avoiding frequent teardown cycles and by cultivating local character. Likewise, a cohesive architectural language (even if modern in style) can reflect local culture and values and strengthen civic identity. All these are normative choices about what we think a city should provide: beauty, permanence, and a sense of belonging. In theory, a call for durable, sustainable construction rather than flashy but short-lived projects should be well-recieved in the modern era. Unfortunately today's sustainability measures are often superficial. Take for example, the recent a narrow focus on "embodied emissions" without accounting for the full lifecycle of materials. The issue is apparent when one considers a home that is built using materials with low embodied emissions scores but will need to be demolished in 50 years or less, compared to a home which relies on enduring materials (such as brick) which can easily achieve a life cycles of 100+ years and where the materials can be relatively easily repurposed. A city built to last is not only the most sustainable, it creates a stable home for local cultures, customs, and relationships that develop over decades. In contrast, rapid turnover of the built environment can erode the sense of place that Aristotle regarded as essential to a flourishing community.

It is telling that the “disintegration of the traditional city” in the modern era has been linked with social fragmentation and loss of civic cohesion. By reviving traditional urban design principles, not by replicating historical styles, but by adapting their human-centric ethos,  planners, architects, and developers today can aim to rebuild that cohesion. Classic designs need not be retro pastiche; they can be modern buildings (designed with time-tested architectural principles) and public spaces that uphold proportion, human scale, and contextual harmony. What matters is that they carry forward the age-old goal of making the city a place that promotes human excellence.

Conclusion

Aristotle’s view of the city as an organism devoted to the good life and virtue provides a timeless normative benchmark for today's urbanism. It reminds us that cities are not just agglomerations of buildings or economies, but communities with ethical purposes that shape the character of its citizens. This calls for a return to traditional urban design principles (e.g. human scale, walkable streets, civic art, and enduring construction) as a framework to create more truly human cities. Planners, architects, and academics can thus find in Aristotle a powerful advocate for city-building that prioritises quality of life, moral development, and civic identity. A city designed on classical principles, suited to human dimensions and aspirations, is one that consciously aims at what Aristotle would deem the highest good: the well-being and virtuous flourishing of its citizens. By integrating this ancient wisdom within the modern era, we can design urban places that are not only efficient, but truly support a good life, fulfilling the very purpose for which the city, in Aristotle’s words, “exists”.