The coronavirus does not have to kill cities — just our old idea of what cities were, how they worked, and who they were for. Disease has shaped the modern city, and the modern city has shaped disease. Democrats depend on big cities and their surrounding suburbs for the bulk of their voters, but when was the last time you heard a national Democratic politician make a forceful case for the beauty, creativity and importance of cities — for all that we owe to them, and all we may yet gain from them? 