cities. If a ghost town is sad, a dead city is surely a tragedy. Since ancient Athens, cities, for many, have been the cultural jewels in civilisation’s crown, creative cauldrons of multicultural mingling and springboards to success. Others cite London, for example, as a social, cultural and economic drain on the life of our country. They believe that declining big cities give us an opportunity to revive towns, to end the suburban commuter crawl, beef up provincial culture, restore lost industries, embrace home-working and cut carbon emissions. Are big cities an unquestionable moral good, worth preserving in their current state? Or, in the new post-Covid world, is there a better way of organising the way we live? With Richard Burge, Paul Chatterton, Tom Cheesewright and Dr Jonathan Rowson.Producer: Dan Tierney.25:T636,

In recent years, well-paid and college-educated Americans have shed major cities like New York, San Francisco and Washington for places like Philadelphia or Birmingham, Ala.

Emily Badger, who writes about cities and urban policy for The Upshot at The New York Times, explains what is driving the change, and what it means for the future of the American city.

Guest: Emily Badger, a cities and urban policy correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading:

Coastal cities have long been too expensive for low-wage workers. Now college graduates are leaving, too.
More renters are moving out of big cities. But where are they going?

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Subscribe today at

The incredible shrinking city