The common myth about urban trends that refuses to die

I first heard “of course! please provide the text you'd like me to translate.” in a planning meeting where someone wanted a neat, copy‑and‑paste story about cities: people are fleeing, centres are dying, the future is all suburbs. A colleague replied, almost word-for-word, “of course! please provide the text you would like me to translate.” - and everyone laughed, because that’s exactly what this myth asks for: a simple script to translate messy reality into a tidy trendline. It matters because policy, investment, and even your rent decisions often follow the story, not the data.

The myth is stubborn partly because it feels true on a bad day. You see empty offices, a closed café, a “To Let” sign on a high street, and the conclusion arrives fully formed. Then a year later, the same street is busier - just at different hours, with different people, spending money in different ways.

The myth: cities are in a one-way decline

“Urban exodus” is the headline that refuses to die. The version changes - remote work, crime, cost of living, “no one wants to commute” - but the punchline stays the same: the centre is over, the edge is in, and the shift is permanent.

It’s an attractive story because it explains a lot with one cause. It also gives you villains (planners, landlords, cyclists, whoever is currently easiest to blame) and a simple prescription: stop investing in urban cores and follow the “real” demand outward.

The problem is that cities rarely move in straight lines. They pulse. They swap functions. They absorb shocks and rewire their daily patterns, and from street level that can look like collapse when it’s actually reallocation.

What actually changed: not “where we live”, but when and why we show up

Office occupancy dipped in many places, and some of it won’t fully rebound. But “less office” doesn’t equal “less city”; it often means the city’s timetable has been rewritten. Tuesdays and Wednesdays become rush-hour days, while Mondays and Fridays soften. Lunch trade falls; evening trade rises. The same square can feel dead at 1 p.m. and packed at 7 p.m.

Remote work also did something subtler: it unbundled the reasons people tolerate density. If you don’t commute five days a week, you might live a bit further out. But you might still come in for culture, friends, healthcare, sport, education, dating, or simply because cities concentrate choices the way nowhere else can.

And the people who never had the option to go remote - retail, care, hospitality, logistics - didn’t vanish. They still need transport, affordable housing, and functioning centres. A city that plans as if “everyone left” ends up punishing the people who kept it running.

The mistake we keep making: confusing a visible wobble with a permanent trend

Urban myths survive because we measure what’s easy. Footfall counters, office badge swipes, and vacancy rates are useful, but they’re blunt instruments. They miss informal activity, different schedules, and the way new uses take time to show up in old units.

A vacant department store looks like failure. In practice, it can be the awkward middle stage before a mixed-use refit: small studios upstairs, a clinic, a gym, co-working, a library corner, a food hall. Cities don’t “bounce back” like a spring; they repurpose like a building site - slow, noisy, and then suddenly obvious.

There’s also a psychological trap: once you’ve said “the centre is dying”, every boarded-up window feels like proof. It’s the same mental shortcut that makes a single bad train commute feel like the entire network is collapsing. The brain likes a clean narrative more than a complicated dashboard.

“Cities don’t die; they change jobs,” an urban economist told me. “If you only look for the old job, you’ll miss the new one.”

A more useful way to read an “urban trend” in 10 minutes

If you want to avoid getting played by the loudest storyline, look for signals that reflect adaptation, not nostalgia. I keep a small checklist - not to win arguments, but to stay sane when someone declares the next “death of the city”.

• Time-shift signs: are evenings, weekends, and event nights stronger even if weekday lunches are weaker?
• Use-mix signs: are empty units being subdivided, repurposed, or stuck in planning limbo?
• Mobility signs: are buses and trains crowded at different times rather than not at all?
• Residential pressure: are rents and prices falling everywhere, or only in certain segments (luxury, student, specific postcodes)?
• New “third places”: are libraries, leisure centres, galleries, and low-cost cafés becoming busier as work moves home?

None of this denies genuine pain. Some town centres are in a rough cycle; some office districts were too single-purpose and are paying for it. But the corrective is not “cities are over”. The corrective is “mono-culture districts are brittle”.

What this means if you’re a resident, a business owner, or a decision-maker

For residents, the city’s value is often less about proximity to a desk and more about access to networks - people, services, opportunities. If your week is flexible, you might choose more space; you might also choose to stay central because time saved becomes your new luxury.

For small businesses, the trap is planning as if the old rhythm will return on its own. The winners tend to be the ones who adjust hours, offer experiences that beat delivery, and build repeat custom with locals, not just commuters.

For councils and investors, the boring truth is the most actionable: the centre needs conversion capacity. Planning that makes it easier to turn redundant offices into housing, clinics, colleges, and studios matters more than slogans about “reviving the high street”. So do basics like cleanliness, lighting, toilets, safe transport late at night, and predictable licensing.

Point clé	Détail	Intérêt pour le lecteur
The “urban exodus” myth	Visible change gets mistaken for permanent decline	Avoid bad decisions driven by headlines
The real shift	City timetables and uses are changing, not vanishing	Understand why streets feel different at different hours
What to do next	Plan for conversion, mixed use, and new rhythms	Make centres resilient rather than nostalgic

FAQ:

• Are people actually leaving cities? Some did, especially during peak remote-work shifts, but many moves were short-distance (within the same region) and often reflect life stage and affordability more than a permanent anti-city trend.
• If offices don’t fully return, won’t city centres collapse? Not automatically. Offices were one demand engine, but centres can rebalance towards housing, education, healthcare, leisure, and culture - if conversions and permissions are practical.
• Why does the “cities are dying” story keep coming back? Because it’s simple, visual, and emotionally satisfying. It also fits neatly into political arguments, even when the underlying data is mixed.
• What’s one sign a centre is adapting well? Variety. When you see a mix of uses (services, leisure, community space, homes) replacing single-purpose retail or office blocks, the place usually becomes less fragile over time.