During my time as an architecture student around the turn of the millennium, few if any of us were designing on computers and mobile phones were still a bit of novelty. It almost seems like a different world and once again it feels like we might be on the cusp of major change.

I don’t recall much from the architecture lectures I attended at that time, but I do remember one given by Peter Hall, the Bartlett’s highly influential professor of planning. The lecture may not have represented his settled view, but on this occasion he predicted a future in which the economy would become increasingly dispersed, with people working remotely from wherever they chose. He also envisaged an on-going blurring between urban and rural, with many choosing to leave the cities.

At the time cities around the world were in resurgence and what he was proposing seemed a remote and, to me at least, not entirely desirable vision. I’ve often thought about that lecture since, and sometimes felt that Sir Peter might have got it wrong. The two decades since have seen a massive agglomeration of wealth and innovation in ever-denser urban clusters. It also seems that for many people globally, the city is not only where they need to be but where many choose to be as well. I wonder now, though, whether covid-19 might be about to provide the kind of impetus that could make Sir Peter’s prediction a reality.

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