Do Cities Still Matter?

I grew up in a small town but I always dreamed about big cities.  I sensed they were special places where, given the right amount of drive, the right mindset, one simply could not fail.  Sure, there would be ups and downs, but cities provided access to a robust network of opportunity.  This was in stark contrast to the small New England towns of my childhood, many of which never fully recovered from the demise of the textile mills in the early 1900s. 

Those were single-industry towns but the cities of my dreams were places where many industries thrived at once.  Physical places where the failure of one was overshadowed by the success of many.  Here, people came to do things, to make things.  This is where entrepreneurs thrived. 

The first choice I faced upon graduating from college in the late 1980s was about place, not work.  Would I choose the small-town life in which I was raised, or go to the city?  I had no doubt about where I was going, even if I had no idea what I would do when I got there.

Does place still matter?  Do cities still matter?  These are the questions that trouble me today, as I continue to bear witness to the post-Covid detachment of work from a designated place or places.  When workers are free to work from anywhere, cities suffer.  This is because cities were built, in part, as places for work.  It is the consistent presence of workers in the city which supports and promotes its economy, an economy which fails in their absence. 

What comes next?  Perhaps that should be the question.  If we no longer attach work to place, what do we do with all the places we built for work?  What do we do with our great cities?