Philip Greenwood is an artist from Undercliffe, but now lives in London with his partner Anne and their ten-year-old son

The Bradford city centre regeneration scheme is both welcome and well overdue, but I sincerely hope that some of the mistakes of the past are not to be repeated.

In the 19th century many buildings were thrown up in a rush to maximise profits, oblivious to local topography, quality of build, or environment. With increased wealth came civic pride, leading to the construction of architectural confections, showing pretensions of grandeur and borrowing heavily on other architectural traditions in an effort to bestow respectability on them.

Then in the 1960s and 1970s, just as the Victorian buildings were becoming interesting, many were pulled down. A few local businessmen saw an opportunity to make a killing, but there was also a genuine belief that this was the best way forward.

There was wholesale demolition of the city's untidy infrastructure of buildings, and with it the detailed traces of human occupation that had developed organically over many years. All the things that make a city vibrant and interesting were swept away. Then to add insult to injury the 'vision' ended up being a fifth rate diluted version, done on the cheap, which was already looking slightly old fashioned by the time it was built.

In the 1980s and 1990s more demolition took place to make way for anonymous impersonal retail sheds and road schemes, just at a time when everywhere else people were waking up to the terrible consequences of this kind of development.

It's hardly surprising that people don't want to come to the city centre any more.

Bradford has taken some hard knocks over the last 40 years, not least the fact that the main reason for its existence, the textile industry, was practically driven to extinction.

There has been much energy put into trying to reinvent the place, but unfortunately somewhere along the line the people of Bradford and its leaders seem to have lost self-confidence.

So what are Bradford's unique selling points?

The hills within the city, and the surrounding moorland. What if the architects woke up to this unique location and stopped seeing the topography as something to be overcome? There are amazing opportunities to make use of dramatic views and unusual sites. There is no need to impose off-the-peg waterside apartments overlooking a cut filled with supermarket trolleys. If you want water features the city could provide a veritable waterfall practically in its city centre.

The city is built from Yorkshire stone. Sure, stone is expensive, but this material is highly sought after for a reason, and Bradford is sitting on top of it.

The mills, warehouses and chimneys. Apart from being symbols of the past, they also serve as reminders of a confident Bradford that was once the world centre of expertise in woollen textiles, with trade links across the globe. A contemporary equivalent of this dynamic outlook could put these buildings to other uses.

The people. Bradford is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the country. So often seen as a problem this should be seen as an under-used asset and opportunity for forging meaningful and beneficial links.