Radical change in places that are part of our daily lives is unsettling.

People are understandably wary of major infrastructure projects which disrupt, or even worse, destroy, the familiar.

All cities compete for income. The vibrancy of their retail, leisure and cultural offer is crucially important to attracting new jobs and inward investment. However, there is always the inherent risk the process of change itself, unless very carefully handled, might destroy the essence of the place in favour of the bland, homogeneous, anywhere city of the American shopping mall.

Glasgow city centre is on the brink of significant change. The city is at one of those moments where the greatest of care must be taken with its rapid expansion. If its essence is damaged, then the process of change could be counterproductive.

On a small scale the new screen at the Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT), opened last year, is a good example of significant change which respects the unique existing character of the place.

Doubtless it was far from easy to shoehorn a whole new cinema into the area previously occupied by the café. The alternative would have been what the developers refer call "gut and stuff", essentially to remove everything within the building and create three, brand new, auditoria.

In the current jargon, this might have "optimised" the use of the available space but it would simultaneously have destroyed the very essence of a building that has been loved by generations of Glaswegians.

What the great planner, Sir Patrick Geddes, would have described as "conservative surgery" worked for the GFT. It is the only sensible approach for a much-loved city centre, full of historic buildings and places where people gather.

Much that is due for change in Glasgow is not historic. The steps at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall are a relatively recent intervention. Created, not without stooshies of its own, for Glasgow's Year as European Capital of Culture in 1990, the Concert Hall, unusually for a big modern building, was an immediate success and rapidly became a favourite area.

Over the fraught construction period up to its opening in 1990, the then council leader, the renowned and sometimes controversial, Pat Lally, worked devotedly to give his native city the international concert hall he felt it deserved.

Years later, his late wife Peggy recalled there were many occasions in the hall's long gestation that Pat worked through the night to prepare the argument for funding his people's palace, against a background of entrenched opposition from Mrs Thatcher's Government.

Something which the Concert Hall's architects, the late Sir Leslie Martin and the late John Richards CBE, could never had anticipated was that the Concert Hall steps would become Glasgow's own, miniature, version of Rome's Spanish Steps.

On warm days and even when it's not quite so clement, the steps are a gathering place, a vibrant communal outdoors eating area, a little patch of urban delight, a piece of architectural serendipity enhancing Glaswegian's affection for Lally's Palais.

Mr Lally's response to the proposed destruction of the steps and the view of the Concert Hall, as reported in The Herald yesterday, is one of great frustration and some sadness.

While it won't affect the auditorium in any way, the new development will certainly diminish the prominence of the Concert Hall at the head of the uphill vista of Buchanan Street.

Mr Lally commented: "The people of Glasgow might be gaining more shops but in the process they might be losing something more valuable".

The redevelopment of the Buchanan Galleries is part of a bigger vision for Glasgow city centre. In tandem with this project, Queen Street Station will be upgraded and the entrance from George Square substantially altered.

The Millennium Hotel, the last remnant of George Square's historic Georgian built form, will also change, with the addition of a substantial upwards extension. The arguments in support are improved economy and enhanced performance. Let's hope also that, like the Concert Hall steps, of soon to be fond memory, all this change delivers places for people.

Neil Baxter is Secretary & Treasurer of The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland.