Large-scale development projects often try to attract and spatially accommodate flows of international investment money. These types of projects are prominent features of the planning agenda of many internationally oriented metropolitan areas in the western world. In his book 'Disconnected innovations', Stan Majoor, focuses on the innovative aspiration evident in some of the latest generations 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? On the basis of casestudies in Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Barcelona, this study provides some concrete recommendations for actors involved in large-scale development projects.