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THERE IS NO SHAME in kneeling before invincible odds. But you should always fight the battles you may win.

The Dutch in the war could have fought town by town, street by street. But what would that have achieved ? The Netherlands, having moved their royal family to safety, put up a brave fight and then declined to have the country ruined. That is why we still have beautiful cities such as Utretcht and Amsterdam.

Disturbingly, the greatest threat to Utrecht came not from the Germans but the Dutch. They too went through the car-and-concrete religion that destroyed so much else of what was good in the 1960s. We had to move faster. We had to create trade and movement. We had to have wide, smooth lines. And we had to dispose of the embarrassing past that had been holding us back.

And so it was that the city turned its canal circle into a multi-lane ring road. It looked awful, it was awful and it ruined a city.

Now, little deters a planner set on creating his vision but this vision simply appalled. The town rose in rejection and protest, the highway was removed, and centuries of waterway was returned to its peaceful, unpolluting way.

Utrecht has moved so far from its petroleum passion that it’s close to impossible to get into the central areas by anything but walking and cycling. There are vehicles, of course, because things have to be delivered and streets cleaned. But this is a city, a life, of human dimension.

Although it so nearly wasn't.