Barely a week passes without mention of the pain being felt by traders in central business districts. Workers are now embracing hybrid work and work from home, and many employers are discovering that productivity doesn’t come from having everyone working in a central office. Coupled with the increased focus on four-day work week, with extensive experiments taking place in England and Iceland, it’s time to challenge the assumptions we have about urban centres and the nature of cities.

The consequence of urban sprawl

History tells us that nomadic societies, seeking the benefits of cooperation, eventually formed groups that settled into small communities that eventually grew into villages, then towns and eventually cities. As the cities grew more congested, people lived further from the centre of the city. But the cities retained their importance as central regions for commerce and social interaction.

This created a modern problem. The large central city retained its importance as a place for work and entertainment but as populations grew more people lived further away. For example, the suburb in which I grew up was about 20km from the centre of the city and was considered far away. Today, that same suburb is considered relatively close with many people commuting 40km or more.

The metropolitan area of that city now spans 100km from the east to the west. It’s little wonder that many people are keen to avoid those many hours of travel simply to get to work and home.

The city assumption is no longer valid

The assumption of the large, central city as the hub for work and entertainment is no longer valid. Many cities have grown so large as to become unwieldy and difficult to manage. Many people spend as much of a quarter of their work day simply getting to and from their workplace. That is often unproductive time that adds to greenhouse emissions and causes stress.

When cities evolved our populations were smaller and urban sprawl was not a feature. The world has moved on but the evolution of cities has stagnated. Quite simply, large, centralised cities are no longer fir for purpose.

That’s not to say there’s no place for cities. Be need to rethink them. Instead of thinking of a city as the hub into which all the urban spokes lead, we can look at how technology can transform them.

Technology is the key to next-generation cities

Since the advent of the pandemic, attitudes to work have changed. To borrow a phrase from my friend Chris Kutarna, from his book Age Of Discovery: Navigating The Storms Of Our Second Renaissance​, we need to rethink our map of the world. The map that placed the big city as the hub with everyone commuting in order to work, shop and be entertained no longer makes sense.

Many of us can work from almost anywhere. Indeed, I’m writing this on my iPad while sitting on the couch. Most days, I work from my home office, collaborating with clients and colleagues using online tools like Google Docs, Asana and Slack. With those and my phone, I can contact almost anyone I need whenever I want (while, of course, respecting their downtime)

Technology has diminished the importance of the big city as the place where people go for work. We are seeing increased development of workplaces outside major cities in strategic suburban hubs.

The pandemic gave many people an opportunity to break pout of their usual work cycle and discover that they wanted something different and sought a move away from large urban centres. And while many co-working spaces faced hardship, others thrived. Those in large cities faltered while spaces in the suburbs and in rural areas have seen increased patronage as workers wanted a place to work where they could be part of a community without the hassle of a long commute.

For many workers, all they need is a decent laptop computer and an internet connection.

Cities will evolve

Cities won’t just disappear overnight. But they will evolve and I think we are seeing the start of that evolution. Already, we are seeing some cities establish co-living spaces. In these new ’urban villages’, people can live, share kitchen and laundry facilities and work in co-working spaces all contained in a single building. This allows people who want to live and work in the city to still have the feel of a neighbourhood or village.

As co-working spaces evolve we’ll see them designed not just with offices and desks, but also with shops, gyms, parks and other amenities so people won’t need to visit cities.

Many cities are already closing or restricting access to vehicular traffic with pedestrians and bicycles starting to have a higher priority. At the same time, we are seeing some people move away from big cities, as they search for a quieter life or more open space. This will, I think, lead to smaller satellites growing in rural areas. As internet connectivity continues to getter faster and more ubiquitous, the need to be in the city will fade.

Of course, people will still want to meet in central locations. Major sports, concerts and cultural events will still occur in cities as large facilities that make such events economically viable will be outside the reach of rural and suburban areas.

We’ll see cities evolve into something different to what we see today. Population densities will come down. The role of big cities as employment hubs will diminish. Satellite employment centres, where companies establish offices or headquarters in suburban or rural areas, will continue to develop and become increasingly important.