#TEDTalk: Is it time for us to use less glass in our cities?

Cities are losing their unique heritage to an "army of high-gloss robots", says Davidson, as architects stop using the wide variety of materials at their disposal. He believes that this trend limits not only the accessibilty of public spaces between these buildings, but a city's ability for historical expression.

"Cities are places of concentrated variety where the world's cultures and languages and lifestyles come together and mingle. So rather than encase all that variety and diversity in buildings of crushing sameness, we should have an architecture that honours the full range of the urban experience," says Davidson.

Justin Davidson is the author of Magnetic City: A Walking Companion to New York (Spiegel & Grau), which leads readers through a portrait of the city told through its history, architecture, music, art and literature.