The 'Without Walls' conference at the Merchant Taylors' Hall on Tuesday aims to encourage citizens to think about what kind of city they live in.

It will look at the needs of young and old, at ways of re-inforcing pride in the city and what kind of role York should have within Europe.

York does well out of its past, tourism generates hundreds of millions of pounds for the local economy.

One of the men behind the ambitious project to

We've certainly got to think about where the city should be in the future

Councillor Dave Merrett

create a vision for the future of York is council leader Dave Merrett who is also chairman of the executive board of the project.

He told BBC North Yorkshire: "The reality is if you do nothing, you end up going backwards.

"We've certainly got to think about where the city should be in the future.

"We're in a very fast changing world, jobs disappear suddenly overnight... we have to think about where we ought to be in 20 years."