Letter from the editors

The inspiration for this month’s issue was Ben Wilson’s new book Urban Jungle: Wilding the City landing in Perspective’s office. We find environmental themes hard to resist, and Wilson’s optimism about a future involving eco-friendly urban spaces inspired us to take a deeper look at our metropolises. Before the pandemic, cities were the acknowledged engines of most human activity, but also, as Wade Graham reminds us in his regular column, the focal points for society’s greatest tensions, particularly between the haves and have-nots. When covid spread, some of these contradictions led us to see our cities in a different light – as troubling, densely-populated petri dishes where disease flourished and unrest fermented, not least between those who embraced strict covid mitigation measures and those who opposed them. More recently, conflict has spilled over into the interventions being taken to reduce traffic and pollution. While many of us support efforts to rewild cities, as Fred Skulthorp’s report reveals, others think ULEZ and 15-minute cities are a step too far. Meanwhile, Susie Alegre considers the level of surveillance modern city-dwellers are subjected to, and its impact on the freedoms that metropolitan living is meant to bring.

During the covid crisis many voted with their feet and left cities behind for a more rural life. The retail sector faced partial collapse as shopping moved online; office rentals and hospitality venues fell away as people worked from home. For a while, our urban spaces looked, if not doomed, palpably drained of vitality and purpose. And while much of their life and bustle have now returned, the two-year hiatus gave many of us pause for thought. How should we cope with future pandemics? How do we plan greener cities? How do we heal the terrifying gap between the urban rich and poor?

Two politicians, one Labour and one Conservative, are centre stage in grappling with these questions. In his double interview with Andy Burnham and Andy Street, Gavin Esler was delighted to discover the degree of collaboration between the two – and increasingly with other city mayors – in the drive for greater devolution of key decision-making. Their joint aim is that local people should have more say in how issues are resolved in their own communities. And while we’re on the subject of the UK’s most dynamic mayors, Nick Cohen takes a retrospective look at the first British mayor of modern times to become a household name, “Red Ken” Livingstone.

As ever, putting Perspective together has an organic quality of its own, as different ideas and angles come together to form what we hope is a coherent whole. The process always reminds us that the issues we face are complex and can rarely be solved by simplistic binary choices. As our motto says, there’s always more than two sides to the story. In that spirit, we hope that at least some of what you read here will get you thinking.

Rowan Pelling and Peter Phelps, Editors