The Covid-19 pandemic creates such uncertainty because it strikes at the heart of our urban world. Over the past five centuries, humanity has become connected with ever closer ties across continents and within cities. Those ties enable commerce, build friendships—and ease the spread of contagion. If we don’t invest enough in preventing future pandemics, the downsides of density may become too severe and our world will start to splinter. A more fragmented world will mean less innovation, less growth, and far more suffering for the disadvantaged.
Classical Athens is the North Star of urbanism—the city whose legacy still shapes the West. After the defeat of Persia at Salamis and Platea, Athenian power and wealth attracted talent from across the Mediterranean world. The city’s close quarters enabled the face-to-face interactions that practically invented philosophy, drama, history, and democracy: Socrates and Plato; Aeschylus and Euripides; Herodotus and Thucydides; Pericles and Themistocles.
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