It is terrifying that our civilisation will not mourn the death of the city

We turn our backs on cosmopolitan culture and urban rituals of personal growth at our peril

When exactly did the question of ending lockdown become all about Pret a Manger? How has the appalling spectre of an empty, silent capital city been so trivialised that we are arguing only about the survival of sandwich bars and coffee shops? London, once the most vibrant cultural and social metropolis on earth (believe me, I have lived in great cities on two continents), looks as if it has been hit by a neutron bomb. It became, virtually overnight, a depopulated museum of weirdly preserved, unoccupied buildings, like a set in some dystopian cinema epic. Forget, for the moment, the debate about whether this closure was necessary or efficacious in stopping the spread of the plague. What worries me is how little most of the city’s usual denizens seem to care about returning to it: how little attention has been paid to the true significance of this phenomenon and how staggering its consequences might be.

The idea that the city as a vital centre of social and commercial life may become moribund and irrelevant appears to trouble very few of those housebound professionals, tucked away in their suburban fastnesses, only too happy to give up the commute and the inconvenient demands of the office routine.

Where is the understanding that a great cosmopolitan conurbation – which attracts and throws together people of different ethnicities and backgrounds, varying trades and occupations, disparate classes and attitudes – is essential to the progress of civilised life? Indeed, since the Renaissance, the growth of the great cities of Europe has been central to the development of civilisation itself.

I am not talking here just about the obvious cultural venues whose survival is under threat but of culture in the broader sense: the currency of ideas and conversation that bubbles away constantly as the background music of urban living. Cities are, in their essence, the antidote to parochialism. They provide the alternative to narrow provincial attitudes and have always offered the chance of liberation to those who felt trapped by the limitations of their place of birth.

Of course staying at home is easy and comfortable – whether in your affluent suburb or your native town – not least because it means that you will scarcely ever need to cope with anyone who is not pretty much like yourself in their social assumptions, their behaviour, their level of affluence and their material expectations. Living and working within your own domicile – never venturing out of your local community – means not having to adjust to what is socially alien or unexpected. It leads to smug complacency at the fortunate end of the spectrum, and suffocating intimidation at the less fortunate end. This is why fleeing to the big city has so often been seen as a coming-of-age experience that allows personal reinvention: it is precisely the anonymity of city life, with its huge variety of incomers looking for a new start which attracts the seeker of opportunity – all those creative chancers and nonconforming free thinkers looking for a fresh way to live. The big city is where you can find yourself – and make a different life – free from the constraints and impediments with which you were raised. That is what London was – before they shut it down.

So no, this isn’t just about sandwiches. And it’s not even just about the economy, at least not in the narrow sense of profit and loss or ready access to paid employment. What the city provides is the possibility of selfdetermination, of social experiment and a chance to see how others – the sort of people you may not even have known existed – think and respond. That, too, is part of the point of “going to work”. Many of those contented employees now sitting in their own studies or at their kitchen tables, and who would very much like (or so they tell the opinion pollsters) to continue doing so may have forgotten what it was they learnt about grown-up life when they got their first jobs.

The reason that going out to work is a rite of passage to full adulthood is that it involves learning to get on with fellow human beings whom you have not chosen yourself. In order to survive and prosper in your job, you must acquire the ability to communicate with and, at least on some basic level, understand the behaviour of people to whom you have no familial or domestic relationship – who might be incomprehensible strangers if it were not for the need to work with them. Having to navigate relationships with colleagues, employers, underlings and associates is one of the great, enlarging experiences of modern existence. It is like nothing else in our natural condition and the permanent loss of it would truly impoverish most of our lives. Perhaps my view on this is skewed because of the nature of my work: newspaper journalism is virtually impossible to sustain without the constant flow of conversation, discussion and sharing of mutual expertise that informs it. But I doubt there is any form of professional life that can be carried on for long without the casual, impromptu communication that physical proximity provides.

What happens now? Will life at home become so stifling and lonely that many of those happily isolated lockdown addicts will regret their reclusive decision? Maybe workplaces will simply become more flexible about hours spent in the office – although I think the realistic possibility of this is rather overdone. But perhaps this actually is the end of what was largely a 20th-century phenomenon in which “going to work” was a primary symbol of maturity, self-reliance and independence.

For London, particularly, it will be the final step in a transformation that has already changed its character: its centre will become nothing more than a playground for the global rich. The Russian oligarchs about whose influence in British life we have heard so much in recent days, with their limousines and bodyguards, will have the place to themselves because the heart of the city’s day-to-day activity will have decamped. And the country – not just its capital city – will have changed forever.

This isn’t just about sandwiches. And it’s not even just about the economy. What the city provides is the possibility of social experiment and a chance to see how others think