Cities after the pandemic

This too shall pass. And then what?

In the halcyon days that were the middle of the last decade, my Corridor Urbanism co-founder Ben Kaplan did a series of what he called Urbanist Goodreads... annotated bibliographies of writing on a particular topic. I am shamelessly stealing this format as a way of starting to sort through the vast array of writing on how the pandemic will affect the future of cities.

Of course, cities will not disappear, and they've survived catastrophes before (Campanella and Vale 2020). But the question is not whether there will still be a New York, or Oklahoma City, or Cedar Rapids, but how will this experience affect how cities look and feel and work? What, if anything, has changed, and can we still have financially- and environmentally-sustainable, inclusive, real communities?

These articles address these questions very broadly; in future surveys I'll look at specific topics like design, economics, and social life. The bottom line is that there are a lot of variables in play here: how long will the pandemic last, will people bear the emotional scars of this scary time or will they put it all behind them, how quickly will the economy bounce back, and how much and in what way will people be willing to support governmental action at every level. (For the huge clean-up job the next U.S. President faces, see Wright and Campbell 2020). It probably also matters whether the city is a densely-populated, global city like New York or a medium-small city with a widely-spread populace like Cedar Rapids.

"How Life in Our Cities Will Look After the Coronavirus Pandemic," Foreign Policy, 1 May 2020

This collection of short takes is a good place to start because it gives a quick range of views along with the various assumptions that underlie them. Not surprisingly, Joel Kotkin predicts that the pandemic will hasten the move away from city centers, while Richard Florida predicts that the ongoing draw of cities will remain, perhaps aided by falling housing prices. Edward Glaeser and Janette Sadik-Khan also weigh in. The Chinese and Indian contributors are most interesting, because while their societies are very different from America, the same forces may be at work everywhere. Kiran Bedi, an local official in India, predicts that her country will feel the effects of the virus well after the pandemic is over:

Cities will lose part of their variety and social life. There will be less eating out, more home delivery, and lower consumption of luxuries. Public cinemas will turn into home cinemas. Gyms and hair salons will not be in demand for quite some time, unless good practices of social distancing and hygiene are maintained. Commercial sex will be out of business.

Steve LeVine, "The Harsh Future of American Cities," Gen, 4 May 2020 

Life in cities will become more difficult mainly because of lingering effects of 2020's public policy failures. We're likely to see several years of stark austerity, with empty coffers for the very services and qualities that make for an appealing urban life--well-paying jobs, robust public transportation, concerts, museums, good schools, varied restaurants, boutiques, well-swept streets, and modern office spots. There will be hopping pockets of the old days with adjustments for pandemic safety, but for years, many businesses could be shuttered and even boarded up, unable to weather Covid-19 and the economic downturn. Joblessness will be high, and many of the arts may go dark. 

Contributing factors include

• accelerated out-migration by young adults in search of jobs and affordable houses
• cash-strapped city governments deeply cutting public services
• an inevitable economic contraction which the pandemic has only accelerated
• massive closures of physical retail
• persistent social distancing and widespread hesitancy to engage in crowded shopping
• business investment turning away from office-service to manufacturing areas
• restricted immigration
• inability or unwillingness of the national government to backup cities or organize contact tracing or testing, and...
  
• loss of governmental competence due to populism.

Charles Marohn, "10 Tasks for Cities Responding to the Pandemic," Strong Towns, 11 May 2020

Marohn argues against restoration of the status quo ante, which may not be thinkable for a long while anyhow. Take advantage of the situation to build resilience, by 

1. reorienting city policies towards mixed-use neighborhoods, encouraging entrepreneurship, and civic culture. Develop a dashboard of metrics that reflect the new priorities.
2. using any forthcoming national and state aid to build resilience, not more of the same old stuff. Infrastructure spending is popular for state and federal officials because it creates immediate jobs and the potential for long-term growth. For local governments, new infrastructure has some of those same benefits, but also the additional long-term liability of now having to service and maintain that infrastructure. Over time, these hasty transactions rarely work out well for local communities, most of which are already burdened by years of deferred maintenance. So, emphasize maintenance over new construction, sewer and water systems over roads, and older neighborhoods over suburban development.  

Nadia Nooreyezdan, "How the 1896 Bombay Plague Changed Mumbai Forever," Atlas Obscura, 14 May 2020

The bubonic plague came to Mumbai on merchant ships, and from there spread throughout India. Local public historian Alisha Sadikot notes the outbreak led the British colonial government to end its neglect of the slums where the virus had flourished. Over time they improved the infrastructure and developed self-sufficient "planned suburbs," but only after they had forcibly displaced the poor residents. In response to the outbreak and the subsequent displacement, many people fled the city, taking the virus with them, but the population had returned within 15-20 years. As with the 1918 flu pandemic in the U.S. there remains little public memory of the plague. So, some acceleration in updating infrastructure, no benefits for the poor, and otherwise little lasting impact?

Rogier van den Berg, "How Will COVID-19 Affect Urban Planning," City Fix, 10 April 2020

The pandemic has not so much created new challenges for cities as exposed problems that were not being effectively addressed.

1. If a lot of people lack access to essential services like health care or housing (or water), it makes controlling a contagious virus impossible.
   
2. Density done wrong means inadequate or unaffordable housing, which further endangers public health.
   
3. A lot of urban parks have seen increased traffic during the pandemic; design of open urban spaces can improve public health, environmental sustainability, and water management, as well as facilitating emergency response.
4. Better regional integration will improve response to the next emergency, whether it be another virus or some climate-related catastrophe, as well as improving resilience of energy and food networks.
   
5. We need better collection and integration of data in order to respond better to the next emergency. Here we can learn from South Korea's response to the coronavirus.

van den Berg concludes: We will rebuild our crucial economic and social fabric. It's our decision [whether] to rebuild better.

Alissa Walker, "Coronavirus is Not Fuel for Urbanist Fantasies," Curbed, 20 May 2020

In this emotionally charged post, Walker reminds her readers that cities are complex, diverse places and what works for one part of the population may be detrimental to another. Like the planned suburbs of Mumbai built after the poor were chased out of their homes, closing streets to cars to help people who are privileged to stay home go for a run doesn't necessarily provide the same benefits to those who use those streets to get to work at essential jobs... If urbanists are pushing cities to give restaurants free roadway space without making a concerted effort to welcome [street] vendors back to those same sidewalks... they are discriminating against the city's most vital and vulnerable small businesses. Everyone's voice must be heard, and everyone's interests be considered, in planning for the post-pandemic city.

Pete Saunders ("Rise of the Essential Class," Corner Side Yard, 22 May 2020) sums it up:

If there's anything we learn from the pandemic, it's that the 80% [who aren't in a financial position to wait out the pandemic] matters as well. Small businesses with razor-thin margins should be given the resources to survive this crisis. People whose work has now been deemed essential to the functioning of American society should be paid like it -- and with more than our gratitude. And we owe it to those who are disaffected and disenfranchised to develop the kind of educational system and safety that gives them an actual shot at upward mobility.

If we don't do that? Well let's just say it's time to prepare for the uprising.

With the future of cities up for grabs, can we choose the option that provides both resilience and inclusive community?