It took the Buddha a lifetime of experimentation with excess and sacrifice to find the secret of a harmonious life - the "middle way".

English urban planning has similarly been stuck between two extremes for nearly a century - to-ing and fro-ing between the cottage and the tower block.

Take an aerial photograph of any city in England and you will see even rows of terraced homes, punctuated at random intervals by monolithic, lonely towers. This cityscape lacks harmony and integrity.

I do not believe our homes have to be either two-storey terraces or 20-storey tower blocks. If you look at the great cities of Europe - Rome, Barcelona, Prague etc (note I do not include Ipswich, Reading or Croydon in this list) - you will find they all follow this "middle way".

Their buildings seldom diverge from five to eight storeys. They are densely packed, come right to the pavement and work together. On our holidays we say "wow" and a lot of us Brits move out to live in these places because they have real character.

So why can't we build like that at home?

In Brighton we have reached the point where our suburban utopia is just not feasible any more as there isn't enough space.

Yet I am constantly disappointed by new projects in the centre of Brighton, of low-density, pastiche terraced housing, low-rise flats and mews developments.

They contradict all logic and economic sense yet they keep on coming. It's as if we have an addiction to the small.

Predictably enough, every once in a while someone comes along with a proposal to plonk a lonely tower block in among all the cottages. Plus ca change . . .

Bizarrely, our predecessors did understand the middle way. The Regency period left us with a tide of five to six- storey buildings along the seafront which, most agree, are desirable places to live. Beyond the seafront, the rules change and the roof lines drop - the determining factor being, of course, the lack of a sea view. London, too, has many excellent examples of "middle way" architecture.

Can we get to grips with some decent urban design in Brighton? I propose three steps towards enlightenment:

1. We have a desperate need and duty to provide more housing so prime land in central Brighton cannot be wasted on indulgent cottage schemes.

2. We must resist high-rise and strive for a harmonious whole, where the medium scale is maintained and street plans are respected.

3. We must employ decent architecture - the kind that doesn't come off a shelf or out of a bottle.

Brighton is a special place so it seems a shame to see it sunk by the same thinking that gave us Ipswich, Reading and Croydon.

-Luke Peters, Brighton