Survival of the City

One of our great urbanists and one of our great public health experts join forces to reckon with how cities are evolving, and must evolve further, in the face of the existential threats the pandemic has only accelerated. Cities make us sick. They always have, of course—diseases spread more easily when more people are in closer contact with each other. Public health has always been central to the story of urban flourishing, from the 19th century's drives to provide clean water and sanitation to the vaccine breakthroughs of the 20th and 21st. Disease is hardly the only ill cities produce; they have been demonized as breeding grounds for vice and crime from Sodom and Gomorrah on. But cities have flourished nonetheless because they are humanity's greatest invention, indispensable engines for creativity, innovation, wealth, and connection, the loom where the fabric of civilization is woven. But cities now stand at a terrible crossroads. All over the world they have...