The changing face of our metropolises

“Thankfully, the drummer in the flat above us has moved out,” says Simon Kuper. I guess he couldn’t afford central Paris now the gigs have dried up. He’s not alone. While there has been a lot of talk lately about the “Zooming classes” abandoning big cities, the exodus that really promises to reshape metropolises over the coming years is that of the urban poor. The well-heeled can afford to ride out this pandemic, and may enjoy being able to work from home in a less traffic-filled city. But it’s a different story for those who work in low-wage sectors such as retail, hospitality, tourism and the arts, where jobs have disappeared and aren’t returning any time soon. If you’re unemployed, you don’t want to be paying London rents. The capital’s worst-hit area might be the borough of Hounslow, where nearly a third of residents “depend directly or indirectly on now semi-abandoned Heathrow airport”. London’s population will surely decline from its current peak of 9.3 million. In time, the big cities will bounce back. But they will have to make long-term choices: build cheap houses for low-paid workers, or “exploit another generation of the urban precariat”.

A drive-in cinema event in Chester was nearly cancelled, because people would have had to cross the border into Wales to use the loo. The Welsh border runs through Chester FC’s car park, the venue for Storyhouse Chester’s Moonlight Drive drive-in – and North Wales Police said it was “dutybound” to stop anyone violating its strict lockdown rules. However, the drive-in will now go ahead, after Storyhouse promised it would limit attendees to the English half of the car park. “We will also be providing Portaloos so customers can have a wee without breaking the law,” said a spokesman.

“It’s been a weird day,” tweeted the pastor Will Graham (grandson of Billy Graham) last week, as he was forced to deny rumours that he had urinated on a woman on a passenger flight. The saga began when it was reported that Detroit resident Alicia Beverly had been woken on a flight home from Las Vegas by a dazed man passing water on her. Worse still, the man was a “famous pastor” from North Carolina. But Graham insisted: “Please know that it was not me.”