Street life is what makes our capital special say members of the Academy of Urbanism, who took a tour of the city recently. Frank McDonald, Environment Editor, reports

Dublin shouldn't be "seduced into becoming a mini-Manhattan", according to George Ferguson, former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects. "It would be a real shame if Dublin thought that, in order to be a big international city, it has to have big international buildings. That's almost a Third World attitude," he said.

"It's okay to do the U2 Tower, as a sort of Statue of Liberty, and put a landmark or two at the other end around Heuston Station. But what Dublin should concentrate on is what it's really good at - street life. Because it's a very social city. You can hardly walk down any street without there being a bar, restaurant or meeting place of one sort or another."

Ferguson offered this advice at the end of a tour of the city by visiting members of the Academy of Urbanism of Great Britain and Ireland. They were here to take a closer look at Dublin, which is competing with London and Edinburgh for the academy's "European City of the Year" award, and St Stephen's Green, nominated as a "great place".

The weather was not ideal. There was plenty of "liquid sunshine", as Dublin Bus driver Francis Carter euphemistically put it. In fact, the rain was so torrential at times that we were all huddled under the partial roof on the front of an open-topped tour bus while the stairs became a cascade. But it had also been raining in Edinburgh the previous day.

Despite the dire meteorological conditions, everyone pulled out the stops - Dublin City Council, the Office of Public Works, the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, the RIAI and Dublin Bus, which supplied the tour bus free of charge. Most stunning of all was the reception laid on by the OPW in the pavilion beside the lake in St Stephen's Green. Hospitality is part of what we are, of course, but the tour was also educational and eye-opening in places. Certainly, nobody will forget the reaction of people in Ballymun, especially children, who had never seen a tour bus in the area previously. "Did yiz get lost?", one young man yelled from the balcony of his fine new architect-designed home.

The tour started with a walk through the west end of Temple Bar to City Hall and Dublin Castle and then by bus via Patrick Street, Cork Street, Marrowbone Lane, the Guinness area, Heuston Station, the Royal Hospital, Phoenix Park, Smithfield, Phibsboro, Glasnevin, Ballymun, Griffith Avenue, Croke Park, Docklands and Merrion Square.

An exhibition at the Civic Offices on Wood Quay gave the academy's adjudicators a snapshot of the best of what has been happening - public spaces such as the Liffey Boardwalk, leisure centres, the best of the new apartment buildings and developments yet to happen, such as the 32-storey residential tower planned near Heuston.

Tony Reddy, former president of the RIAI, summed up the extraordinary change in Dublin's fortunes by likening it to what happened in Barcelona and Madrid after the Franco era finally ended. "Everyone was thinking about what should happen with the city and were just waiting for the moment when these ideas began to flourish."

John Thompson, the academy's chairman, recalled that when it was set up last year he had said that one of the things it set out to do was to "launch a million conversations" about urbanism. He defined the city as "a layering of conversations" and noted that the prize for "European City of the Year" would be a poem by Barnsley poet Ian McMillan.

What impresses him most about Dublin is how the River Liffey, so long a dividing line between northside and southside, now has "great movement" across it, aided by "visionary" connections, such as the Millennium Bridge and the Sean O'Casey Bridge in Docklands, which brings together "functionally dislocated places" like TCD and the IFSC.

"We've only got one new bridge in London after all these years," Thompson said ruefully of Norman Foster's footbridge which famously wobbled after it was first opened. However, he said parts of Dublin were "still pretty tatty, possibly because property speculators were "sitting on investment opportunities" or the sites were over-valued.

"If there were more entrepreneurial opportunities for beginners, that's when it would be most exciting because they'd do something different and you wouldn't end up with 'Clone Street'," he said. That's why he believes that Dublin is "lucky to have only one Starbucks" when other cities have the ubiquitous chain-café on nearly every street.

George Ferguson singled out Quartiere Bloom, off Ormond Quay, as a great example of how good, lively urban spaces can be created on a tight scale.

The street, which is only six metres wide, really should be called Wallace Street after its developer Mick Wallace; he understood instinctively that it would appeal to our Mediterranean mentality.

A regular visitor to Dublin, Ferguson finds that the city has "a very positive feel about where it's going. It has become a very stylish city, one of the most stylish in Europe, but not in too ephemeral a way. It still has its low life, still holds on to reality and doesn't fool itself or take itself too seriously. That's what's great about Dublin, about Ireland."

He arrived by train from Cork and was delighted to be able to take the Luas almost to the doorstep of his hotel (the Morrison). "Luas is the biggest new step in recent years. So is the fact that the river has once again become the city's major feature, when it used to be almost unnoticeable, as if it was a ditch. And the Liffey Boardwalk is brilliant."

Ferguson was also impressed by the transformation of O'Connell Street.

"It's a real eye-opener about what can be done by investing in the public realm and shows that there is a belief in the future of the north inner city"; he mentioned the conversion of St Mary's Church in Mary Street into a "big boozer", saying it had been done very well.

"On average, I would say that the quality of Irish architecture is as high as you'd get in any European country. There is a real seriousness about architecture in Ireland. It's not quite as cutting-edge as Holland, but few places are.

There are probably fewer big stars, but even in bad times, there were some architects in Dublin who shone through."

Asked to compare it with Edinburgh, one of its main rivals, Ferguson said Dublin "has some great historical advantages. Its core was developed in the 18th century with elegant streets and squares by generous landowners who balanced this dense urban development with good green spaces like Merrion Square and St Stephen's Green.

"Edinburgh has the advantage of very dramatic topography, which Dublin simply doesn't have. One of the greatest views in Europe is from Calton Hill over the city's remarkable skyline, with Arthur's Seat and the Mound. I don't see it, or Dublin, becoming a high building city. In Dublin's case what makes it attractive is the activity on the ground."

What John Thompson would like to see happening here is the launch of a urbanism course for transition year students. And to help it on its way, he suggested that schools should be invited to make a huge sand model of the city centre in the courtyard of Dublin Castle, where the Academy of Urbanism will be holding a conference next May.