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London's core increasingly becomes a focus for politicians, a planner with extensive experience studying North American downtowns is still settling in at city hall.

Jim Yanchula arrived in London near the end of the last council term, bringing years of downtown knowledge that will no doubt prove useful as the city redoubles efforts to revitalize the core.

"There's no great metropolitan area that doesn't have a great downtown," Yanchula said Thursday, one day after addressing the city's well-attended downtown summit.

"One of the things that attracted me to London was that I felt people get it - they understand great metropolitan areas have great downtowns."

Yanchula, London's manager of community planning and urban design, came here from the City of Windsor.

He's a longtime member of the Washington, D.C.-based International Downtown Association, where he's helped judge the quality of downtowns worldwide.

Though London never entered its contests, Yanchula says the success of its Millennium Project - spawning the John Labatt Centre, Covent Garden Market and other sites - deserved wider recognition.

Mayor Joe Fontana is spearheading a renewed effort to revitalize downtown, largely based on his plan to build a new city hall and use the massive project to attract other private-sector investments.

Wednesday's downtown summit drew more than 250 Londoners, who were asked to answer three questions focused on the possible construction of a new city hall. Their answers will eventually be compiled in a report to council.

Not everyone is convinced that's the best idea, or that a new city hall is even necessary.

But whatever the direction, Yanchula says based on his experience London has a strong chance to build on its previous downtown successes.

"People would give their eye-teeth in medium-sized North American communities to have building like that Tricar tower across from the JLC," he said as an example, adding Londoners show "high interest and high evidence of interest" in the core.

Asked for a comparison to London's downtown potential, he pointed to Asheville, North Carolina - a medium-sized city and regional centre that has similarly strong natural amenities and heritage buildings.