Professor Malcolm Parry: "During the series I felt that Newport - Wales' newest city - had to be looked at. How was it facing up to the challenge of its new city status? Were there any signs of urban regeneration and renewal? At first sight it may seem that the quality of the new city's architecture is unpromising. The bus station, recently voted one of Wales' ugliest buildings, the Kingsway Centre and its carparks, the railway and roads isolating what has to be Wales' most pathetic castle. Certainly 1970's architecture and development hasn't treated Newport kindly. Being brought up in Gwent I have always known it and was fond of the scale, size and quality of the buildings in Commerical Street, I liked the Odeon Cinema and the market, warmed to the tidal rise and fall of the river (it is so fast you can almost see it move) and loved the Transporter Bridge. But it came as a surprise looking through the Cadw listings and Pevsner to find that within Newport's urban fabric are over 400 listed buildings, 15 conservation areas, ten historic parks and gardens, 4 archaeologically senstive areas covering some 15800 acres and 50 sq Km of landscape registered as being of outstanding historic interest. No wonder then that it won its claim for city status."
