Our urban environment is bustling, we cram on to crowded trains, socialise in busy bars and restaurants, live in high-rise apartments.
This microcosm of human life is why many people choose to live in cities. Can these interactions survive in a new era of detachment, when safety seems to come from separation?
How we can still live in cities after social distancing
The American architecture critic Michael Kimmelman described pandemics as “anti-urban” and highlighted that the way cities are built encourages social interaction rather than distancing. The problem is, we actually need cities as much as we always did.
It’s also true that at a global scale, continued migration from rural to urban areas is driven by the search for economic opportunity, the simple magnetic pull to a better job or a higher income.
That’s not the only reason we live in cities. We love them because of the amazing quality of life they offer, the diversity of the people, and the convenience of public transport, and the simple pleasures of strolling around and enjoying public life. We live in cities because they are exciting.
So should we all flee from our urban nests in a moment of global panic? Let me argue the case against.
Firstly, people living in low-density environments are also vulnerable to diseases like COVID-19.
Epidemics spread whenever people come together and that includes sporting events, concerts, churches and schools. A radical return to most of the population living in towns and the bush is not a practical reality.
Second, cities help us to get through a pandemic in a lot of ways too. It’s easier to have good hospitals with specialists and easier to have items delivered to your house. The conveniences of access-by-proximity also apply in times of crisis.
Thirdly, some cities have managing the response pretty well so far, places like Singapore, Tai Pei and Seoul in particular.
However, our psychological approach to cities is likely to change. The pictures of passengers pressed against each other on the London Underground, as they have done for decades, cause unease in an age of contagion. In Australian cities, will we again be comfortable to squeeze check by jowl with other people on to a rush-hour train? It will take time to readjust, certainly.
One thing that’s clear is that successful societies are going to need to have the ability to monitor and track infectious diseases.
In the past, cities have been physically shaped by concerns over disease, especially the creation of modern water and sewer systems as part of the industrial city, when public health leaders came to understand how diseases spread.
The equivalent today might involve capacities for surveillance and population management — monitoring who is sick, track contacts, sealing off borders, exercising strict control over movements of people.
What about more fundamental changes, such as people travelling less, socialising less or working remotely becoming a norm? Could we be seeing the reverse of the “great inversion“, which has seen urban centres all over the Western world growing?
These scenarios of urban decline are more persuasive if epidemics become frequent. After 9/11 there was a real concern about cities’ vulnerability to terrorism. Transport systems and water supply lines and other infrastructure that enables city life appeared vulnerable and were adapted. The very framework of our cities may have to change in an era of pandemic.
One reason to be sceptical about the death of the city is that it’s been predicted for more than 100 years.
The telegraph, the telephone, radio, TV, the automobile, and the internet all led people to speculate that cities would spread out as people were “freed” from having to be clustered together.
I think cities are going to continue to be the preferred home for most people. We are social animals, we like to be around each other. Most economic activity is generated in urban areas. Cities are here to stay, although we will never quite view them quite the same. Urban living just changed.
This opinion piece was written by Gabriel Metcalf is CEO of the Committee for Sydney and it was first published here
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