Urban Values
Covid-19 has rekindled ancient tensions between city and country.
The historian Diarmaid MacCulloch once told me, only half jokingly I think, that the London Underground was evidence of some kind of divine entity. Here were masses of people of all shapes, sizes, colours and creeds, submerged together in rapidly moving cans, who despite the armpits, sniffles and coughs, embraced a rare spirit of tolerance, patience, even good humour.
I have been looking for a history that links underground mass transport systems and epidemics. Many of the places that have fared least well from Covid-19 have been the great global cities to which tube lines are integral: London, New York, Paris, Madrid, Milan.
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