As James Williams puts it, in order to do anything that matters, we must first be able to give attention to the things that matter. The purpose of this chapter is to argue that cities matter, and even in the uncertain and challenging times of a global pandemic, they are worth saving. But right now the future of cities is under threat. On the one hand, cities are facing the impacts of digital technology, enabled in part by the Trojan Horse of the ‘smart city’, as I argue throughout this book. But this isn't the only current threat that cities face. Many are now raising existential questions over the post-pandemic city: if cities bring people together, then post-pandemic they just want to be as far apart as possible. Based on high-density residential and commercial development and a centre for leisure and entertainment, there are growing claims that cities have become the ‘plague pits’ of the 21st century. Size matters, as by mid-2020 it's the larger cities that have been hit hardest by COVID-19, with around a quarter of all national deaths in the US and the UK being in New York and London, respectively, and around a third of Spain's total deaths being in Madrid.

A world without cities isn't entirely unthinkable as cities are a relatively new phenomenon. They arose for specific reasons to meet certain needs, be it as marketplaces for excess produce or as centres of religion or as military strongholds. Created by humankind they are not immutable. So, if the needs of humankind have changed, then perhaps it's time for cities to change too? It's not as if cities have remained static over the past couple of centuries. In one of his many sweeping historical overviews, Lewis Mumford discusses the rise and the fall of cities, looking for patterns and trends. Taking his cue from ancient Rome, he argues that cities go through a series of stages as they evolve and reflect the needs of wider society. The last stage of city evolution is what he calls ‘necropolis’, or the city of the dead. Here, cities become physical shells, devoid of purpose.

Obviously, cities as a concept didn't die with the fall of the Roman Empire, but Mumford's point was that there was a life cycle to particular city forms and functions, and we shouldn't assume that cities are a permanent feature of civilisation.