Now that Wimbledon club executives have revealed plans to relocate from south London to a spanking new stadium, 60 miles north in Star Trekkish, 1970s new town Milton Keynes – turning every match into an away game – the Wombles are screaming betrayal and vowing never to show. Milton Keynes' citizens, however, have been rather more upbeat. They believe the decision will give added force to their campaign for city status. The stadium, when built, will be a stunning addition to the town's huge pop arena, new theatre and art gallery, and its impressive new indoor ski slope, 170 metres long and covered by real, fluffy, all-year-round snow. Less impressive is Xscape, the ugly grey armadillo-shaped building where the ski slope is housed.I say town. In fact, Milton Keynes has been calling itself a city since it was born. Others joked about its concrete cow sculptures and grid system of roads, oiled by hundreds of roundabouts; Milton Keynes, they said, was a sci-fi experiment, destined to fail.

Even today, driving into town is an eerie experience, for the buildings and citizens are mostly invisible in a construction so orderly that even the ducks by the artificial lake seem to huddle in a perfect circle.Everyone is housed in discreet micro-neighbourhoods, shielded from traffic and each other by hundreds of thousands of trees. The town is so folded in on itself that to see people in any great numbers, you must take to the vast malls or the warren of underpasses.Love it or hate it (I'm actually rather partial), Milton Keynes, the last and perhaps most successful of the 20th century new towns, has thrived despite the jokes. It continues to acquire and expand, doggedly pursuing its ambitions to be great. It never bothered with the required royal permission to call itself a city. And who can blame it? Until recently, the Queen was sparing with the favour, and when she did bestow it, no one was sure what criterion she used.There are 61 cities in the UK but nothing, in particular, seems to link places like Cambridge, Wolverhampton and the tiny St David's. Norman Miles, the leader of the Labour group on Milton Keynes Council puts it bluntly. "On what criterion was Sunderland (plucked from townly obscurity in 1992) selected?" he asks, eyebrows raised high.

The elevation to city status of Brighton and Hove, Wolverhampton and Inverness to mark the Millennium also puzzled many. For all that was known about the process, the Queen might have been pulling names from a hat, or shutting her eyes and shoving a pin in a map.Considering the title of city was bestowed only 14 times in the last century, the Queen, encouraged by New Labour, has gone mad. For her Golden Jubilee, next year, she is creating four more cities. There are 36 towns, including Milton Keynes, vying for the honour. Criterion guidelines – including a preference for towns with significant regional or national features and a forward-looking attitude (surely more New Labour than Windsorspeak) – have just been published for the first time, though the whole business remains pretty woolly. What seems ludicrously archaic – given the economic benefits that the wannabees insist that city status can bring – is the preference for towns that have royal connections.But the game is being played without too many questions being asked about the rules. Chris Randall, the owner of a cafe in the cavernous belly of the grey armadillo, says city status will help Milton Keynes's current "rebranding" campaign.