Creativity, the City, and the Future

Abstract

Could the marriage of online meetings, emails, social media, worldwide pandemic, 'working from home', and home deliveries really signal the end of cities? If the story of cities has not come to an end, how might they evolve in response to these new impulses, particularly in the UK? This paper begins to provide some answers to these pressing questions. It does so by turning to London's urban history, to the 1960s and 1970s anti-urban ethos, to the fall and rise of London and New York in the 1970s and 1980s, and especially by applying to cities theories of innovation that have been developed in the context of managing business and explaining the creative process. The discussion casts doubt on the city pessimists and suggests that although cities may be restructured to combat the impacts of Covid-19, they certainly won't be abandoned.