The end of the office, the end of the university campus, the death of the city. The past months of pandemic gloom and doom have witnessed many dire predictions. A common theme has been that our newfound, battle-hardened ability to live and work remotely will render physical space obsolete.
Yet, after countless lockdowns, quarantines and Zoom sessions, I would put forward an opposite proposition: Embracing and re-imagining the space of our cities will soon be more powerful — and more necessary — than ever before.
To explain why this is the case, one must consider the social dynamics of in-person interaction — ones that we took for granted until a year ago — in comparison to their virtual alternatives. In a seminal 1973 paper, American sociologist Mark Granovetter divided our social networks into two types: the “weak ties” between casual acquaintances and the “strong ties” between close family and friends, who are also friends with each other.