In the very first in our series of digital interviews, which we started broadcasting in March as a result of lockdown, Stephen Engblom, head of Global Cities at AECOM, said  “cities need to be better lobbyists. Cities don't do a very good job of lobbying for themselves. Cities need to realize the power they have in terms of GDP as a percentage of national economies.”

 

Trawling through city authority press releases to seek comments that might suggest Stephen was wrong. There’s plenty of comment about the damaging impact of Covid-19 on the economies of cities and the need for government assistance to support the public and private sectors. Newspaper headlines like“Covid-19 crisis means England's local authorities could go bust, warn mayors”, abound. But less about the fundamental importance of cities. Minister for London, Paul Scully, got it right when he said: “As we fire up the UK’s economic engines again, we know that the capital will be pivotal to our national recovery.”

 

We know many aspects of our cities will change - the impact of greater home working, one of the effects of Covid-19 that almost everyone agrees on, will reshape large parts of major cities.  Nervousness about density and the effects of lockdown will alter the way we think about development with more open space, balconies, home-working facilities.

 

But as Richard Florida has said “Ambitious young people will continue to flock to cities in search of personal and professional opportunities. Artists and musicians may be drawn back by lower rents, thanks to the economic fallout from the virus. The crisis may provide a short window for our unaffordable, hyper-gentrified cities to reset and to re-energise their creative scenes.”

 

The poor will also continue to be drawn to cities. There has been much talk about the post-Covid city being more equitable, more diverse more fair. But it will only be able to be those things if it is economically resilient with balanced communities. If the wealthier move out to the suburbs or the countryside and centres are colonised by the poor with little hope of advancement then our cities will implode.

 

From the earliest times, cities have been centres of culture and trade; they drive national economies. As we come out of this crisis we need them to be at peak performance. Here at NLA we daily celebrate the benefits of this great city; we are focused on how we should shape it as we come out of Covid-19, how we accelerate positive change and how we build back better.

 

As Dan Doctoroff, former Deputy Mayor of New York says “Cities will come back stronger than ever after the pandemic” but they will be driven by a model of growth that emphasises inclusivity, sustainability and economic opportunity. Amen to that.