Abstract
This article extends our understanding of the city through the notion for liveable cities of Jacobs (1961) ‘Death and Life of Great American Cities’, and Alexander (1964) ‘A city is not a tree’. Two large cities such as Almaty and Cardiff are selected to be a case study and anal-yses for supporting the arguments. Generally, both cities’ modern parts represent how the public realm might be socially inactive due to its lack of urban design complexity. Meanwhile, more pedes-trian-oriented and functionally mixed historical centres are liveable.