Kate Cooper on how the pandemic will make our cities smarter

Urban Luddism is a fool’s tonic

Cities won’t be what they used to be, and that’s probably fine, writes Kate Cooper

London was built for the horse and cart. The ancient city’s cobbled streets used to house the workshops for farriers and blacksmiths. Much work was available for those employed clearing the streets of horse manure. Coaching inns on the outskirts of the great metropolis, at

Hampstead Heath, St Albans and Epping

Forest, made a roaring trade, providing rest and sustenance for those travelling into and away from England’s capital.

At first slowly, then abruptly, the horses were replaced by railways and motorcars.

Areas close to train and subway stations became the new desirable locations, and property prices spiralled close to transport hubs. The farriers and blacksmiths soon struggled for work and, eventually, disappeared. The coaching inns lost their raison d’etre: there was no need for a bed when a journey could be completed in a day.

In those days, as now, there were calls to turn back the clock. Panic was around every corner. The advent of powered transit would kill the city economy. The entire ecosystem of London would be destroyed as the city was radically reshaped around the high-speed threat. The City of London initially opposed the railway penetrating its boundaries. The operators of horsedrawn omnibuses protested it.

The reaction to every epochal shift is a plea for things to stay the same.

Fast forward to the present day, and once again politicians are calling for a rapid shift into reverse gear. Homeworking has been so enthusiastically embraced by business districts that are all but deserted at knowledge workers and their employers evenings and weekends. Offices that were that policymakers fear for cities’ econo- once soulless banks of space-hungry desks mies. Since the pandemic struck, London might be converted into audio-visual hubs has among the highest rates of remote where employees can meet every so often to working of any major city in Europe, far create and test ideas. higher than Paris or Berlin. Research from the Institute of Lead-

Concerns about London and New ership & Management shows that young York’s daytime economies are understand- people are the age group least likely to able. Whither the sandwich shops such as relish homeworking. Sitting in small flats, Subway and Pret a Manger, which relied or perhaps at home with parents, makes upon workaday office staff to keep the not for a great working life. Much of the revenues coming in? What of the cobblers office space once occupied by giant corwho repaired the heels of corporate exec- porates could be repurposed as vibrant, utives who pounded skyscraper corridors shared workspaces for the young. There is every day from eight until six? The fear is an enthusiasm for hybrid working: 78% of they will go the way of the farriers. UK workers would like to be in the office

Perhaps they will. But modelling cities some of the time – just not all the time on the demands of a world gone by is sense- (see graphic). less. City mayors would do The smarter, collaboas well to call for a return to blacksmiths on each street The reaction rative city is possible. It is certainly desirable; better corner. The 100% office to every than what we had before. existence has gone. And it isn’t coming back. epochal shift It will not be without its victims – franchises such

Instead, the big cities of is a plea for as Subway and Pret, which the world need visionaries. What does the metropolis things to stay once measured their success by how many branchof the future look like? It’s a the same es they opened each year, good bet that London and might need to find a new New York, with their superior social, gastro- metric. There will probably be fewer sandnomic and cultural life, will continue to be wich shops. Coffee chains might discover magnets for great businesses keen to bring they no longer need two branches just 100 people together regularly – if not every day. metres apart. There is a clear opportunity to convert real Yet in their place will come something estate from office space to homes and lei- new. Something that supplies the desure space, bringing 24-hour life back into mands of the future – not the way we were.

THE FLEETING ERA OF PRIVACY

One of the few advantages of the commuting life was privacy.

Workers left their homes in the suburbs each day to live a working life physically and socially removed from that of their home life. Few had ever seen their colleagues’ kitchens, let alone met their children.

The homeworking revolution has changed that, blurring the boundaries between work and home. If home is now work, then work is now home. There are multiple advantages to this – workers, at whatever level, become more human. When you meet your manager’s fouryear-old son by accident on Zoom, you are likely to regard her as a human being as well as a boss.

Yet the rolling back of privacy is undeniable. The era of privacy was fleeting. It lasted less than a century, beginning at the Industrial Revolution and mass transport and ending with universal internet connectivity.

Industrialisation enabled large numbers of people to move away from villages, where everyone knew what they were doing 24/7, to city centres, where they could disconnect for the day. The internet has recreated those villages.

We are no longer able to hide. THE HYBRID WORKPLACE

Far fewer people want to work at home permanently than are currently doing so.

A YouGov poll of UK workers taken in September 2020 suggests many workers will be keen to work in offices at least some of the time after the pandemic. Some 39% want to work from home some of the time, while the same proportion prefer to never work at home. Only 18% want to work at home all the time – only slightly higher than the 13% who worked remotely permanently prior to the outbreak.

The survey suggests a hybrid workplace is the likely model of the future, with many people working some days a week at home and, from time to time, meeting in offices or other locations to collaborate.

WHERE TO WORK? Percentage of workers who were working prior to the coronavirus crisis and who also expect to still be in the workforce once the crisis is over

WFH all of the time

What they were doing before Covid

13

What they are doing now

What they want to do after Covid

18

WFH some of the time

19

Furloughed

33 15 7

39 3

Don’t know

68

46

Never WFH

39

Source: YouGov 2-6 September 2020

Kate Cooper is head of research, policy and standards at the Institute of Leadership & Management