Get ready for the “Great De-densification.”

As the coronavirus temporarily empties our cities, this may be the time for a return of American localism. Local governments and business could lead the way.

In the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville praised Americans for their ability to form small communities to get things done and saw in the American township a model of participatory democracy and civic spirit. The postwar years rattled that vision, as government subsumed a lot of tasks that private associations had done on their own, and people moved from farms and rural areas to big cities. The future, we understood, lay in urban density and big, central government or corporate operations.

The coronavirus, with a little help, may make us think differently.

The pandemic has made clear that our local networks are the ones that matter most. When things look bleak, we often turn homeward. Working as a young professional flying all over the world and living in an apartment building (or out of a suitcase) may no longer be as exciting and attractive as it was a year ago, when restaurants and gyms can be closed by government order, everyone has a face mask at the ready and you can be stranded at the first sign of an outbreak. Indeed, many young professionals in crowded cities have returned to their hometowns to wait out the crisis. Families are rushing to buy homes outside of major urban centers like New York to get away from possible vectors of infection.

And we may finally have the digital economy we all were told was coming in the early 2000s. That one fizzled; people saw technology as a supplement to their existing lives rather than helping frame an alternative. This doesn’t mean technology is the answer — sometimes the most essential jobs in this pandemic have been those that require direct, personal contact rather than expertise in abstract or esoteric knowledge. But this time may be an opportunity to better integrate technology into the way we want to live.

Living locally doesn’t mean no risk, but the pandemic has shown how much we rely on networks and processes we have little insight into or control over. In other words, we can be rooted in our communities while still doing the sophisticated work of the global economy — or we can decide that economy is not for us and find other fulfilling work.

Local governments should be thinking about what will bring life back to downtowns and rural areas devastated by decades of global capitalism and urbanization. The trends among millennials for small-scale, artisanal, customized jobs will only increase. Less expensive places to live and work, which are less crowded and with more opportunity for community-building, will only become more attractive. Perhaps some combination of training programs, flexible zoning variances, easier transfer of any certifications between states and rental allowances (say, to freshen up small-town business districts) could do the trick. Tax breaks for relocating or building homes with enhanced features like gardens, front porches (great for social distancing!) or infection-resistant materials could be offered.

Corporations, too, would benefit from thinking about what a dispersed, connected workforce might look like. The pandemic is showing that videoconferencing and other forms of communication will become increasingly accepted for everything from corporate boardrooms to courtrooms. It would not be surprising to see corporations revisit how they buy and use real estate — maybe the age of the skyscraper or campus is ending, as people become more accustomed to digital conference calls and working with teams (as many corporations already do) spread out among different locations. Offices and in-person conferences of course will still be necessary, but it may not be critical to keep thousands of people together in large buildings or require them to take mass transportation to get to their jobs.

The outcome of the tragedy of this pandemic may be the realization that there is a common good, greater than each of our own desires, that makes us better when we work together, whether in local settings or online.

Gerald Russello is editor of The University Bookman.