Global cities, world order and post-pandemic futures

Although the long term impact of Covid-19 on the world’s cities cannot yet be known, what we can see is how the pandemic is interacting with existing trends and forces that are shaping both cities and the wider international system of which they are a part. Covid-19 will not transform cities permanently on its own. Instead, its short-term effects will interact with deep-lying structural transformative trends that are already playing themselves out in our cities. This article examines this intersection, and suggests the pandemic also represents an opportunity for different political actors to struggle to shape the future of cities.