It’s also known as the city’s arts and cultural precinct. It’s meant to draw people in, like Melbourne’s Federation Square. It’s meant to create a sense of excitement.

If you think it’s not quite up to the task you’re in a good company. The ACT’s City Renewal Authority thinks it needs a major facelift. It notes the precinct’s community significance, but says its low scale buildings are part of the problem, in that they provide little opportunity “for spillage or activation of Civic Square which is poorly used, in part due to few active frontages.”

Successful cities with vibrant squares have what’s called ‘active edges’. In many of Europe’s squares, people continually come and go from buildings that surround them. The buildings generate people and movement.

Not in Civic Square. The theatre, the museum and the House of Assembly have little or no external signage or any features that encourage the passersby to linger. It also doesn’t help that there is a major road between the square and the Canberra Centre.

So the City Renewal Authority has called for tenders for a plan to redevelop the square and the buildings that surround it.

The buildings would probably be taller, or augmented by buildings that are taller. Most successful squares are surrounded by buildings of at least four storeys.

There’s already the multi-storey building being constructed to the north of the House of Assembly, being designed to house 1700 public servants. There’s also plans for a 90-bed hotel and commercial office space, perhaps with apartments. It will activate the streetspace with other potential development over time along Vernon Circle that encircles City Hill.

Here’s my idea and hope: that the redevelopment of the city’s cultural heart be a space for free activity that attracts people of all ages, mobilities and demographics. It should be open and public rather than a closed and private space, in every sense.

Visiting Federation Square in Melbourne recently I was delighted to be welcomed by people who meet and greet visitors; so called ‘place managers’. They walk up to newcomers with a smile and offer information. Federation Square may be a highly programmed space but it facilitates fresh interactions.

In Canberra’s Civic Square, hardly anyone smiles. “Bureaucracy in Canberra is managing the place to death, rather than managing it to life,” says a recent arrival to Canberra. “What the city should do is manage it to life with people who welcome visitors.”

Light rail will help bring people into town but the nearest tram point to the square is on Northbourne Avenue near the post office, too far away to provide the pedestrian traffic that Melbourne’s Flinders Street Station funnels into Federation Square.

The challenge for Canberra is to create a thicker city fabric that welcomes and connects people of all incomes and backgrounds. At its heart would be a democratic space, an environment that supports cultures of exchange where people can interact without having to open their wallets.

The best city centres are where things happen rather than where things are consumed, although consumption can be part of the mix. They invite walking, staying, resting and playing. They offer sensory experiences and a sense of wonder. It shouldn’t be beyond us to create one.

Toni Hassan is a Canberra writer.