Large-scale development projects that try to attract and spatially accommodate flows of international investment money are prominent features of the planning agenda of many internationally oriented metropolitan areas in the western world. In this study the focus is on the innovative aspiration evident in some of the latest generation of projects, to create a mixed-use economic and urban area. This ambition for `new urbanity' is often expressed in a preliminary stage of planning but hardly ever materialises in the spaces which are eventually built. How can this discrepancy be understood and what opportunities are there for the creation of more lively mixed-use projects in the future?