The Future of the City

Introduction

Amsterdam Ave. in New York City is nearly empty in May 2020 after COVID-19 forced schools and businesses to close. Many experts say cities will thrive again but must evolve to meet changing work habits and lifestyles. (AFP/Getty Images/Timothy A. Clary)

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Overview

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul was in no mood for half measures.

“Burn the Zoom app,” she implored business leaders at a February breakfast meeting. Tell employees to come back to the office, she urged. “Give them a bonus” to get rid of Zoom.1

The New York Post warned of doom and gloom in 2020 as the pandemic emptied the city's subways and offices and spawned a mass exodus to the suburbs. State and local leaders are urging people to return to ensure their cities' vitality. (New York Post/Screenshot)

It is a message that leaders from mayors to governors to the president have been echoing. In March, President Biden urged an end to remote work, presenting it as a necessary step to save American cities in the wake of the pandemic. “Because of the progress we've made fighting COVID, Americans can not only get back to work, but they can go to the office and safely fill our great downtown cities again,” he said.2

Hochul, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Biden, and other leaders have reason to be concerned about the outlook for American cities in the wake of COVID-19. Census Bureau data show that the nation's largest cities experienced a significant population loss during what is known as the prime pandemic year: July 1, 2020, to July 1, 2021.3 Urban poverty and income inequality have risen since the start of the pandemic, and public transportation usage is dropping.4

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Indeed, the pandemic initially ushered in widespread predictions of the death of cities around the world, with people emptying areas that thrived on density. “New York City is dead forever,” blared the New York Post in August 2020.5

Polling shows that Americans are less likely than before COVID-19 to want to live in cities, preferring the suburbs. And yet, people are still moving to cities. Rents are soaring in cities such as New York and Los Angeles.6

Experts believe that the demise of the American city may well be overstated, as it often has been throughout history.

However, the shift to remote and hybrid work, a trend toward a four-day workweek or other flexible work arrangements, changing transportation patterns and increased economic inequality could have a lasting impact on the nature of cities. These trends all have been exacerbated by the pandemic.

“The death of the city is regularly predicted, but like Mark Twain's premature obituary, it is greatly exaggerated,” said John Rennie Short, a professor of geography and public policy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “The future continues to be giant metro areas and dense cities.”7

To examine the impact of the pandemic on U.S. cities, experts tend to separate how different types of urban areas are analyzed. Major municipalities such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago have been affected differently than midsized cities including Austin, Texas, or St. Louis, or historically industrial cities such as Buffalo, N.Y., and Baltimore. Cities have seen changes in their population, small business vibrancy and economies since the pandemic began. Housing affordability, homelessness and government assistance vary from city to city.

Based on the most recent data available, 4.9 million Americans left cities in 2020, compared with an annual average exodus of 5.4 million people before the pandemic. An additional 2.9 million people moved into cities from suburbs or rural areas in 2020, compared to an annual average of 3.1 million people from 2016-2018.8

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And there was no major change in the number of people moving to suburbs in 2020, which goes against the common wisdom that people fled crowded cities for more spacious communities.9

More specifically, data show that the pandemic initially prompted large migrations out of New York City and San Francisco, in part because both had large numbers of jobs that could be done remotely.10 Ultimately, though, some major cities, such as New York, are seeing a rebound in people wanting to live there, despite all the pressures of the pandemic. “New York City remains a place where young people want to live, and rents returned months ago to prepandemic levels,” says Adam Piore, author of The New Kings of New York, a book about the city's real estate market.

Even before the pandemic, Millennials, the generation born between 1981 and 1996, were moving out of cities, while younger recent college graduates were not.11 The number of young adults in urban neighborhoods has increased over the years. In recent decades, many cities have seen a resurgence, with the concentration of young adults living in cities a major engine of this resurgence.

But as Millennials reach their 30s and 40s, they tend to move away from cities. This “reverse migration,” accelerated by the pandemic, is indeed affecting the makeup of cities, said Hyojung Lee, an assistant professor of housing at Virginia Tech, in a paper for the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.12

One factor is rapidly rising rents. Before the pandemic, rents nationwide were increasing at a pace of about 3 percent a year. According to real estate firm Redfin, the average monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment nationwide is $1,977, an increase of about 22 percent since January 2021. Rents rose in Austin, New York and Miami by as much as 40 percent, according to Redfin.13

Some of the cities facing the starkest rent increases are not necessarily the largest. In Florida, Naples, Sarasota and Tampa are facing some of the nation's steepest increases, averaging between 29 percent and 39 percent in the past two years.14

The urban rent increases reverse a trend that started in the early part of the pandemic, when Americans moved from cities to suburbs (or vacation homes) amid an increase in employees working from home. Low-interest rates contributed to rising home prices, while more apartments sat empty. But once the economy reopened, people began returning to cities, causing rents and home prices to rise.15

When it comes to the commercial real estate market in U.S. cities, the picture is somewhat different. The pandemic led to the worst recession that sector has ever seen.16

The business shutdowns and increase in remote work caused by the pandemic “have the potential to severely impact the finances of cities by reducing the demand for commercial real estate and the property tax revenues that depend on a robust commercial sector,” the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a research organization that provides information about state and federal tax regulations, said in a November report. “The fiscal implications of a decline in commercial property values are important because the property tax is the dominant local source of taxes, and commercial property makes up a significant portion of the property base in cities.”17

A 2021 analysis by the Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research concluded that rents in high-density areas and central business districts in the largest U.S. cities fell by more than 10 percent in the first year of the pandemic.18

Adding to the pressure on the urban commercial real estate market: overbuilding. Joseph Gyourko, a professor of real estate at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, said the demand for office space is unlikely to return to prepandemic levels.19 Office vacancy rates reached a high of 17.2 percent in the third quarter of 2021. Many companies are calling workers back to the office, but full occupancy at those workplaces is unlikely given that workers have proven they can work remotely.

“Cities are going to have to think about what are they going to do with the empty office buildings, and what they do when the real estate, the retail, the restaurants, the Starbucks around those buildings aren't needed anymore,” Gyourko said.20

Still, a study done by the global consulting firm PwC and the nonprofit Urban Land Institute found that the commercial real estate market is stronger than expected. “By forcing people to work and live differently, the pandemic revealed hitherto unknown reservoirs of flexibility in how the property sectors could function — and changed expectations of how people will use properties in the future,” the report said.21

“The demand for office space slumped during COVID, but it is coming back,” says Richard Barkham, global chief economist at real estate company CBRE. “I believe we have caught the bottom of the office market and we are in a gentle upswing.”

A lone pedestrian crosses a street in a largely deserted downtown Atlanta in late 2020 as COVID-19 caseloads reached a record high. Nearly 5 million Americans moved away from cities during the pandemic. (Getty Images/Education Images/Universal Images Group/Peter Titmuss)

In addition, retail real estate has bounced back. CBRE's third quarter 2021 retail report showed vacancy rates at 10-year low of 5.9 percent.22

Another factor in the outlook for U.S. cities: COVID-19 exacerbated ongoing urban challenges, such as unemployment, poverty and inequality. Crime and homelessness increased during the pandemic, creating a barrier to recovery for many downtowns.

“We always assumed once people go back to work, once kids go back to school, things are going to be better and we'll see the crime … will go down,” said Christopher Herrmann, an assistant professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “That's certainly not what we're seeing.”23

All these competing factors are leading urban analysts to ponder what will, ultimately, anchor American cities when the supports that always existed for them are no longer there.

“There's a long-running debate: Are people in cities because they love cities or because that is where the highest-wage jobs are?” asked David Autor, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “I think it is more the latter.”24

As policymakers and citizens alike consider the future of American cities, here are some of the questions they are thinking about:

Will the pandemic have a long-term impact on American cities?

Like everything that the pandemic touched, cities have been significantly affected by COVID-19. In many downtown areas, stores have closed, and people have moved. But some midsized cities such as Austin and Boise, Idaho, have seen a large influx of technology workers from the San Francisco Bay area and other high-cost localities.25

Some experts believe the migration patterns seen during the pandemic are only temporary.

“Out-migration did increase in many urban neighborhoods, but the magnitudes probably would not fit most definitions of an exodus,” said Stephan D. Whitaker, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. “What is certain is that hundreds of thousands of people who would have moved into an urban neighborhood in a typical year were unwilling or unable to do so in 2020.”26

Indeed, some experts believe the outlook for cities is strong, because younger workers attracted to urban jobs and social opportunities will help cities rebound, the way they did after the Spanish Flu of 1918 and the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Even centuries ago, after the bubonic plague of the 1300s in Europe and Asia and the global cholera outbreak of the early 1800s wreaked havoc in urban areas, cities demonstrated their resilience and bounced back.27

Tracy Hadden Loh, a metro fellow at the Brookings Institution, says one urban industry that may well be significantly transformed is the hospitality and leisure sector. Restaurateurs and hoteliers are making changes that range from tweaks to how they use technology to reinventing their business models, she says.

In addition, Hadden Loh says that entrepreneurs are “rushing to capitalize on new connections” that people made during lockdown in their own neighborhoods. “Everything from what the experience is like when you eat out at a restaurant to getting away for the weekend is different now and will likely change more in the future.”

Another area that may transform cities is the nature of retail stores. Hadden Loh says that “bricks and mortar will not lose their retail relevance, but what purpose a physical store is, and thus where it needs to be located, how big it needs to be, and who works there are all changing in the long term.”

Janette Sadik-Khan, New York City's former commissioner of transportation, said the pandemic may even lead to improvements in Americans cities. “There are so many opportunities following the pandemic not just to restore what wasn't working before, but to move in a new direction,” she said. The “energy, excitement and sense of place” offered by major cities means there will be a natural desire to return to them.28

However, some experts believe the changes to cities brought on by the pandemic signal the end of urban areas as they currently exist. “The mirage of cities buffeted by white collar jobs and supported by the wealthy who pay bloated tax rates is over,” said Kristin Tate, author of The Liberal Invasion of Red State America. “It is easy to blame this on the coronavirus, but a combination of factors heralded the slowdown in places like New York and fueled population growth in smaller cities and suburbs across some regions of the country.”29

Of course, the impact of the pandemic on city budgets may well lengthen the time it takes for urban areas to bounce back. “It's unlikely states will bail them out, given states' own revenue problems but also the contentious relationship many states have with their big cities,” said Richard McGahey, an economist at the New School for Social Research in New York City.30

And other experts, such as Ingrid Gould Ellen, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University, say the changes to cities wrought by COVID-19 may not last.

“The pandemic may have altered the economic model on which many cities operate, but as with previous shocks, crises and upheaval, these changes will push cities to evolve and reinvent themselves,” she says.

“The core of what makes cities attractive places to live — walkability, diversity, culture and amenities — is unchanged,” Gould Ellen says. “All that vitality remains. Their enduring appeal is reflected clearly in the recovery of residential rents and home prices, which now exceed prepandemic highs in most cities.”

Jeremiah Moss, author of Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost Its Soul, said he hopes “that the long-term effects will be cities that attract people who truly love city life and are not trying to recreate suburban life in an urban environment.”

“Cities are communal, they attract people who don't want homogeneity, who can tolerate a little chaos, and who aren't afraid of other human beings,” he said.31

The University of Maryland's Rennie Short says companies may not want to relocate from city centers if they want to attract workers in a tight labor market. “Would it be easier to go to a suburban office park and look out at a parking lot?” Rennie Short asks. “I'm not so sure.” Many of the most desirable companies to work at want employees who are attracted to their culture, he says, “and those … young workers still want a central city location.”

Is the commercial real estate market headed for a collapse?

More than two years into the pandemic, there does not seem to be a slam-dunk path to recovery for the office real estate market, CBRE's Barkham says. The pandemic increased e-commerce and led to a rise in remote work, making working from home a permanent aspect of the economy. Office vacancy rates continue to rise in major cities.

“It is a slow recovery, but we really need another 24 months to [see] where it is going exactly,” Barkham says.

Across the country, office vacancy rates have risen to 12.2 percent from 9.7 percent over the past two years, according to Barclays bank, which cited data from Costar, a commercial real estate database. Data from Kastle Systems, which provides security services to many office buildings, show vacancies at 60 percent in major markets. Among the cities with the biggest increases in office vacancies are San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles.32

As recently as summer 2021, about one-fifth of office space remained vacant in New York City, Chicago and San Francisco. In Texas, the state with the lowest vacancy rates, offices still were only about half full.33

“It is unlikely we will go back to having the same demand for central office space,” says Rennie Short, of the University of Maryland. “The spaces will be used differently.”

Signs like these, in New York, have become common in many cities as businesses that depended on office workers closed. (Getty Images/UCG/Universal Images Group/Lindsey Nicholson)

Indeed, New York City office buildings on average have lost 17 percent of their property values during the pandemic. It was their first decline in values in more than two decades, leading to significant pressures on New York City's finances.34

Still, some real estate experts believe good times are ahead for the commercial real estate market. Neil Dutta, head of economics at Renaissance Macro Research, believes that the “housing market boom of 2021 is about to lead to a great American commercial-building boom as more shopping centers, doctors' offices and supply stores go up around the country — providing a big boost for the U.S. economy.”35

Dutta said it is important to note that commercial real estate development is not limited to office buildings. New housing will increasingly come in the form of mixed-use development that includes grocery stores, retailers and restaurants, among other commercial ventures.

“Much of the housing shakeup has been driven by the rise of remote work, which means the types of commercial buildings that go up will be slightly different — fewer office buildings and more open-air shopping centers with a supermarket as an anchor tenant,” he said.36

One sign that the commercial real estate market may turn around at some point: the American Institute of Architects' Architecture Billing Index, a measure of nonresidential activity. That index has expanded for the past 11 months.37

Dutta said this index has a lead time of about three to four quarters, meaning construction usually starts to surge about a year after the index moves into expansion. “If that correlation holds,” he said, “we should see a serious pickup in commercial real estate in no time.”38

Dutta also believes an increase in architectural and engineering jobs during the pandemic is a sign that the commercial real estate market is turning around. Although the number of people employed in these fields is still generally below prepandemic levels, architectural and engineering jobs have increased almost 5 percent compared to December 2019, according to Census Bureau data.39

At the same time, commercial real estate prices have increased about 13 percent from last year, according to the Federal Reserve.40

Dan Rosenbloom, managing director and head of investment at the real estate investing company Cadre, agrees that there are signs of a commercial real estate turnaround. Still, midsized urban areas will likely outgrow the country's major cities, he said. “Generally, prices tend to appreciate where jobs are available and people are drawn…. In recent years, we have watched a migration from gateway cities like New York to smaller markets.”41

As a result, Rosenbloom expects cities such as Phoenix, Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C., to show the most commercial real estate growth.42

Ultimately, some real estate and urban analysts believe the way to address pressures in the commercial real estate market is to convert unused office buildings to residential purposes. Lawmakers in Congress have even introduced a bill that would create a 20 percent federal tax credit per year to cover part of the costs of converting office buildings to residential or mixed-use purposes.43

“We think companies in traditional workspaces, lined with individual offices, will opt to cut costs — particularly in the next economic downturn — by moving to higher-density open-plan offices that are common in crowded cities like New York, Singapore, and London,” said Megan Walters, who leads global research at Allianz Real Estate. “These open-floor-plan layouts can shrink needed space by about 20 percent.”44

One other factor weighing on the outlook for the commercial real estate market in cities is pressure to become carbon neutral by 2030.45 Many of CBRE's clients are “wanting to know what climate risk and opportunity means to their organization, and what are they planning to do about their carbon footprint,” said Jennifer Leitsch, the real estate company's vice president of corporate responsibility. An aggressive position on net-zero carbon can help make the office more attractive, she said.46

Will remote and hybrid office work fundamentally change the nature of cities?

They have become known as “Zoom towns.”

Cincinnati, Kingston, N.Y., and Lincoln, Neb., were once known as cities that people moved to for work reasons. But now, these smaller cities are among those that have become popular “Zoom towns,” which have seen a significant population increase because of an influx of remote workers.

Historically, where people live has been determined by where they can find a good job. “Superstar cities,” as major urban areas have become known, attracted more residents and businesses.47

Just before the start of the pandemic, about 10 percent of U.S. workers were remote full time. Now, about a quarter of the workforce is expected to stay remote full time, and more will work remotely part time.48 This change has moved activity away from city centers and closer to residential neighborhoods.

Remote and hybrid work “doesn't just change the dynamic between workers and companies,” wrote Richard Florida, a professor at the University of Toronto's School of Cities and Rotman School of Management and an economic development adviser to cities, and Adam Ozimek, chief economist at Economic Innovation Group. “It is affecting the economic fates of cities and communities large and small, but especially smaller ones: They can now develop and build their economies based on remote workers and compete with the big-city business centers and West Coast high-tech meccas that have long dominated the employment landscape.”49

In the 15 years before the COVID-19 pandemic began, more than 90 percent of employment growth in America's tech economy was concentrated in five coastal metro areas: San Francisco, San Jose, Calif., Seattle, San Diego and Boston, according to the Brookings Institution.50

Florida and Ozimek noted that for cities, “remote work changes the focus from luring companies with special deals to luring talent with services and amenities. Communities can invest precious tax dollars more wisely and cost-effectively on things like better schools and public services, parks and green spaces, safer streets, bike lanes and walkable neighborhoods.”51

At the same time, the central office district will likely remain in decline. “There's no question that cities will have to adapt now that the five-day-a-week commute to a central business district is much less common, and online retail continues its ascent,” Gould Ellen, the New York University public policy and planning professor, says.

Experts say the fall of the office district will have the biggest impact on the finances of large cities and will particularly hurt low-wage workers.

The impact may be particularly strong in Manhattan. With more companies adopting permanent hybrid work, the average New York City office worker is expected to cut annual spending near the workplace by $6,730 from a prepandemic total of around $13,700, the largest drop of any major city, according to research from economists at Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, Stanford University and the University of Chicago.52

When the pandemic shuttered businesses, many employees worked from home — or from a table in New York's Flatiron District, as this woman did in 2020. While remote work has hurt downtowns, many believe it has helped boost residential areas. (Getty Images/Alexi Rosenfeld)

This has resulted in more closures of small businesses — such as coffee shops and dry cleaners — that cater to commuters. Empty storefronts have increased in Manhattan, according to the city comptroller's office. In some parts of midtown Manhattan, one in three retail spaces is empty.53

Ultimately, plenty of people will still be going into work. It is estimated that only 37 percent of jobs can be performed completely remotely. But those jobs represent 46 percent of all U.S. wages — significant purchasing power that is no longer going to downtown areas.54

The distribution of people working in more spread-out areas could revive businesses in neighborhoods that previously had been largely residential. A February and March survey of nearly 9,500 private sector employees in Manhattan found that remote work has helped the places where people live.55

“Cities that can combine unique city center amenities with excellent residential options will be the most successful ones long-term,” said Chris Grosso, CEO of Intersection, a company that designs technology for public spaces in cities. “But all cities will have a new activity pattern, with a greater portion of activity in neighborhoods.”56

Moreover, Grosso said, “the net effect is that overall activity in cities remains robust, but that activity and mobility are more distributed than they were before the pandemic.”57

Of course, analysts expect some cities to remain relatively unchanged from their prepandemic makeup, despite the move to remote and hybrid work. Seattle, for instance, is comprised significantly of people who work for companies that are headquartered there — Amazon and Microsoft, for example. These companies have implemented indefinite hybrid work arrangements, so their offices will not be as full and occupied as they once were.

Still, the companies are holding onto their office space as a place to meet, socialize and collaborate.

And even megabank JPMorgan Chase, which in April reversed its hard line against remote work and said it will sanction this practice indefinitely, is still sticking with its plans for a new, high-profile Park Avenue headquarters in Manhattan.58 The office will be able to host 12,000 to 14,000 workers, but the seating will be flexible.

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Background

Hamilton vs. Jefferson

The American city was dismissed as unnecessary by critics as far back as 1876, when the telephone was invented, because it was believed people would no longer have to conduct business face to face.59

Indeed, tensions over urban values and culture date back to the creation of the United States, when there was a debate about the culture and soul of the new country — whether it lay in Thomas Jefferson's “agrarian virtues” or Alexander Hamilton's “urban dynamism,” said Michael Hendrix, a Manhattan Institute fellow and author of The Closing of the American City. 60

Jefferson observed at the nation's birth that “the mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body.”61

But experts believe cities have continued to thrive, despite ups and downs, because of job opportunities, cultural features and growth potential for young people.

In the 19th century, the United States began a transformation from a primarily rural and agricultural society to an urban and industrial one.

Between 1880 and 1900, there was rapid growth in American cities. With industrial expansion, the country's urban population grew by about 15 million people in the two decades prior to 1900.62 The change was due to both a wave of immigration and the mass movement of workers from rural to urban areas to find jobs. By 1920, the urban and rural populations were equal. The population of rural areas continued to drop, while cities became the centers of American political, cultural, financial and economic life.63

But industrial expansion and population growth significantly altered the fabric of American cities. Noise and traffic, poverty, air pollution and sanitation and health problems were common. Mass transit was built, and skyscrapers dominated the city skylines. New suburbs emerged. Commuters, who traveled in and out of the city for work, increased.64

“Cities grew because industrial factories required large workforces and workers and their families needed places to live near their jobs,” said Alan Singer, a Hofstra University historian and author of New York's Grand Emancipation Jubilee. “Factories and cities attracted millions of immigrants looking for work and a better life in the United States.”65

In 1890, social reformer Jacob Riis' landmark exposé of life in New York City tenements, How the Other Half Lives, opened the eyes of many Americans to the appalling conditions overtaking the nation's cities.

An Italian immigrant sits with her baby in a small, run-down New York City tenement in 1887. Cities grew rapidly in the late 1800s as a wave of immigrants from Italy and Eastern Europe and workers from rural areas came to work in the expanding factories. (Getty Images/Museum of the City of New York/Jacob A. Riis)

“Today three-fourths of [New York] people live in the tenements, and the nineteenth century drift of the population to the cities is sending ever increasing multitudes to crowd them,” Riis wrote. “The fifteen thousand tenant houses that were the despair of the sanitarian in the past generation have swelled into thirty-seven thousand.”66

The book came at an important time in the history of urban America. Industrialization led to rapid population growth in the cities, as rural residents and European immigrants sought better jobs and pay in urban factories.

As Riis and others documented, overcrowding, disease and crime hurt many urban neighborhoods, and slums expanded.67

20th-Century Backlash

As cars became the dominant mode of transportation in the 20th century, amid a backdrop of political corruption, impoverished neighborhoods, crime and riots, Americans developed a love-hate relationship with their cities. Crime, crowds, pollution and middle-class flight to the suburbs rose after World War II; suburban sprawl contributed to a fervent strain of anti-urbanism in American life. It was a sentiment that harkened back to the earliest days of the nation.68

Steven Conn, a history professor at Miami University in Ohio and author of Americans Against the City: Anti-Urbanism in the Twentieth Century, noted that cities, dating back to Philadelphia in the 18th century, have long been places of diversity, a first stop for immigrants. Racism and anti-immigrant sentiments have sometimes fueled opposition to cities throughout history.

Also, industrial cities that boomed in the 20th century “relied on the actions of government to make them livable,” he said. “Paved streets, clean water, sanitary sewers — all this infrastructure required the intervention of local, state, and eventually the federal government. Indeed, the 20th century city is where our commitments to the public realm have been given their widest expression — public space, public transportation, public education, public housing. Anti-urbanists then and now have a deep suspicion of those public, ‘collective’ commitments. In this sense, cities stand as antithetical to the basic, bedrock, ‘real’ American values: self-reliant individualism and the supremacy of all things private.”69

Indeed, the New Deal of the 1930s carried an anti-urban tone. Conn noted that one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's goals was to “decentralize” cities by moving people and industry “out into the hinterlands.”70

But a decade earlier, British economist Alfred Marshall argued that there are several key features that that make cities enduring. A pool of skilled labor allows for the transfer of knowledge and skills, a presence of many businesses allows for adjacent industries to thrive, and the density of people leads to a growth of information.71

Still, after World War II, not only the wealthy but also many members of the working class aspired to move out of the central city; suburbanization exploded. Public housing for the poor became concentrated in city centers.

This groundbreaking for Los Angeles' Santa Monica Freeway in 1957 and similar highway projects paved the way for the middle-class flight to the suburbs, aided by the automobile's centrality in American society. Residents had become unhappy with cities' pollution, crime and other problems. (Getty Images/USC Libraries/Corbis Historical/Los Angeles Examiner/Contributor)

Violent crime became a noticeable element of city life at this time, which contributed to the flight of middle-class families. Robberies rose 482 percent between 1960 and 1970 for cities with more than a million people. By 1980, the country's five largest cities were home to 7 percent of the total population but 20 percent of the country's murders.72

The 1980s brought new and intense dynamics to American cities. An exploration of rural parts of the country faded in the 1980s, with 90 percent of the decade's population growth occurring in large cities with populations of 1 million or more.73

Indeed, even with problems growing for cities during this period, historians note that an urban renaissance was taking hold. “The late 20th century,” Alan Ehrenhalt writes in The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City, “was the age of poor inner cities and wealthy suburbs; the 21st century is emerging as an age of affluent inner neighborhoods and immigrants settling on the outside.”74

The Manhattan Institute's Hendrix agreed, noting a decidedly trendy vibe to this period of urban renaissance in the later part of the 20th century. “Younger, richer, and hipper people peered in and saw opportunity and a great many pleasures,” he said.75

A few trends contributed to this movement back to the cities. At the end of the 20th century and into the 2000s, crime decreased significantly in urban America. In Washington, D.C., which had become known as the “murder capital,” the number of homicides dropped from 479 in 1991 to 92 in 2012. And the murder rate in New York City began dropping in 1990.76

In addition, since 2000, some cities, such as New Orleans and Washington, D.C., have added to their public transportation systems, with things like modern streetcars that are attractive to tourists and residents alike. These are intended to help with traffic congestion and air pollution. At the same time, cities began repurposing defunct transportation networks with programs such as Rails to Trails where they convert old railroad lines to bike paths or create parks and other open spaces, such as what New York did with its High Line.77

Still, more than 90 percent of Americans continued to drive to work in the years leading to the pandemic, with the average commute taking about 27 minutes.78

From a demographic perspective, American cities boomed in the period after the Great Recession of 2007-09. Between 2010 and 2011, the nation's two biggest metro areas, New York and Los Angeles, were first and fifth in population gains. For the four years after that, big metro areas saw an influx from the rest of the country at the same time that many cities grew faster than the suburbs.79

Still, some cities never recovered from the Great Recession, one of the worst economic downturns in U.S. history. Despite an ongoing national recovery from that recession, many cities continued to be hobbled by budget constraints.80

The Pandemic's Disruption

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted all urban trends that had been building for decades. Schools shut down nationwide and workers stopped going into the office. People who thrived on tightly packed living suddenly saw density as highly dangerous in a pandemic and fled to more spacious locations. In a poll taken about a month after the pandemic hit, 39 percent of urban residents said COVID-19 had led them to consider leaving for less densely populated areas.81

One trend that greatly altered the dynamics of cities began about a year into the pandemic. It was a major disruption of the labor market known as the “Great Resignation.” Americans have been quitting their jobs at a historic rate, and that has changed the longstanding nature of cities as a hub for work.82

Still, the factors that drew people to cities, even without them being a requirement for work, persist. A study by the Harris Poll and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs taken in November 2020 surveyed people living in the nation's six largest metropolitan areas about their attitudes on urban and suburban life. The results showed that many felt American cities offered the best chance for an economic and social recovery from the pandemic.83

In the poll, big city residents — people living in central cities or downtown areas — said they were particularly committed to staying in cities. Seven in 10 residents living in the New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix and Philadelphia metro areas said they preferred to live in a big city; only 8 percent said they would prefer the suburbs. To compare, fewer suburban residents said they prefer suburban living and three in 10 said they would choose a big or small city instead.84

But ultimately, the widespread adoption of technology by people during the pandemic will likely have a long-lasting impact on cities because people no longer need to leave their house to conduct their business.

“Meetings, business lunches, work trips — all these things will happen in the after world. But nobody will forget the lessons we were all just forced to learn,” said Derek Thompson, author of Hit Makers: How to Succeed in an Age of Distraction. “Telecommunications doesn't have to be the perfect substitute for in-person meetings, as long as it's mostly good enough. For the most part, remote work just works.”85

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Current Situation

Demographic Changes

While a growing number of people fled cities when the pandemic began, that trend has significantly slowed. Now cities are adapting to a post-COVID era.

“Moves out of the densest parts of big cities, those with more than 10,000 people per square mile, jumped 17 percent to about 2.9 million during the first year of the pandemic, from March 2020 to February 2021,” a Pew analysis concludes. “The number of moves out of those dense areas returned to prepandemic levels in the following year, March 2021 to February 2022.”86

Whitaker, the policy economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, said that cities are attracting young people in their 20s, while older Millennials — a more populous demographic — are expected to continue to move out. That trend will likely bring down rents, he said.87

New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco lost more than 700,000 people combined from July 2020 to July 2021, according to the Census Bureau. The Sunbelt cities of Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, Austin and Atlanta gained more than 300,000 residents altogether.88

This is a pattern that contrasts with a decade ago, when large cities were growing due to a jump in immigration and increased popularity of the urban lifestyle.89

How Cities Are Responding

The changing migration patterns due to the pandemic have affected city finances. Cities are facing shortfalls from decreased economic activity during the pandemic and the need to increase funding for public health programs related to COVID-19.

In the early part of the pandemic, city leaders relied on state and federal programs for stability, though some of them were politically polarizing. For example, the most popular program was a residential eviction moratorium, backed by 93 percent of Democrats and half of Republicans.90 Universal paid sick leave and federal money from the 2020 CARES Act, an economic stimulus measure, were also used to stabilize cities.

Estimates indicate that city leaders will have 15 percent to 25 percent less revenue after the pandemic. “All cities are struggling to keep current service delivery levels,” scholars Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez and Megha Mukim wrote in a Brookings Institution March 2021 report. “Cities that rely predominantly on one activity, such as tourism, hospitality, transport, or logistics, are particularly vulnerable.”91

The pandemic has forced city leaders and developers to reimagine downtown real estate as more people continue to work remotely. A $250 million makeover has turned this 1960s-era Los Angeles building into an airy office complex for businesses in creative fields. (Getty Images/Los Angeles Times/Francine Orr)

But a study of 167 cities around the world shows that urban planners are aggressively making changes to make their cities more attractive. Sixty-eight percent of cities are reconsidering urban planning and the use of space, and 54 percent are rethinking mobility and transportation.92

One strategy that urban planners are leaning into is called the “15-minute-city,” in which shopping, work, restaurants and education are all located within a 15-minute walk of each other. Urban designers like this concept not only because it makes cities more livable and attractive to people, but it has sustainability elements to it as well.93

“As cities work towards recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the ‘15-minute’ city concept can be an organizing principle for urban development,” a report by the Deloitte consulting firm said. “It offers a socially concentrated yet highly functional blueprint for a new urban inclusive lifestyle that might find wide scale acceptance, particularly since lockdowns associated with the pandemic have forced people to re-orient their lifestyles to ‘go local’ and re-discover their neighborhoods.”94

And commercial real estate developers are continuing to look for strategies to brand offices as attractive in an era when people do not need to use them. This may well be the toughest challenge for big-city revival: a September 2020 Cushman & Wakefield study predicted commercial real estate vacancy levels will not return to 2019 levels until 2025.95

So how are employers working with cities to lure people back to the office? According to a survey of 800 company leaders by the workplace platform company Envoy, 61 percent of businesses are making changes to the physical workplace. And 88 percent are using some kind of incentive to bring people back to work — treehouses, taco Tuesdays and virtual golf tournaments are all among the goodies that employers are using to bring people back to the office and to city centers. Only 5 percent have a no-office attendance policy.96

Big companies are still investing in their office space. In the last three quarters of 2021, the tech industry leased 76 percent more office space than it did a year earlier, according to CBRE.97 Meta, the parent company of Facebook, leased 730,000 square feet in midtown Manhattan in August 2020 and also added space in Silicon Valley, Austin, Boston, Chicago and Bellevue, Wash. And Google has bought a $2.1 billion office building in Manhattan and is expanding its presence in Atlanta, Durham, N.C., and Pittsburgh.98

Still, the slowest cities to recover have been New York City and San Francisco, according to CBRE's Barkham. San Francisco, in particular, is feeling the effects of changing demographic patterns in American cities in a post-COVID era, and in some ways is being left behind.99

The city, once a national hub for technology jobs, has the country's lowest office occupancy and one of the slowest jobs recoveries. Now, on top of low office occupancy and persistently high housing prices, the city is battling a difficult homelessness situation and persistent drug and burglary issues.100

Long Description

That is why the city's mayor, London Breed, is echoing the calls to return to the office that have been made by East Coast and national leaders. In March, she announced a commitment from Wells Fargo, Uber and other employers to enforce policies to call workers back to the office.101

“We cannot overstate how important workers returning to their offices is to our survival and ultimately to the richness of San Francisco,” Denise Tran, founder of a San Francisco Vietnamese restaurant, said in a statement issued by the mayor's office. “We have been tightening our belts and doing the best we can over the last two years, but without workers filling our downtown, it has been difficult. We've missed the bustle, the laughter, and the energy of having a full house each day. We depend on each other and can't wait to welcome the return of employees downtown.”

But with projections showing that 15 percent of San Francisco office workers will permanently telecommute by 2023, the city is girding for slower growth in business taxes. “We need to start planning for a world of reduced office demand,” said Ted Egan, San Francisco's chief economist.102

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Outlook

Midsize Stars

With major urban hubs such as New York and San Francisco facing their own unique pandemic-related dynamics, urban experts say the cities to watch are those that are seeing an influx from bigger and more expensive coastal cities — places such as Austin and Pittsburgh.

For these cities, the challenges are not high rents or housing costs. “People in urban discourse are focused on gentrification and real estate prices, but I bet the mayor of Flint, Michigan, would kill for gentrification,” says Conn, of Miami University. “And there are a lot more Flints than there are New Yorks.”

Indeed, people who are tracking the outlook for cities are wondering about the pressure urban areas will face long-term as residents migrate from high-cost places such as San Francisco. These cities seeing the influx of people are also facing the highest inflation rates in the country. In fact, in the most recent inflation reports, Phoenix has the highest rate of inflation — and San Francisco has the lowest.103

But the Manhattan Institute's Hendrix says that people should not look to negatives when considering increased migration to lower-cost cities. These areas will benefit from being viewed as a hub for young people, places that compete with San Francisco or New York. “In the long term,” he says, “secondary cities are no longer going to be secondary. They will become America's leading cities.”

Austin, for example, has become the hottest real estate market in the country, said Mike McDonald, a vice chairman at Cushman & Wakefield, a global real estate firm.104

Moreover, the pandemic has added a new factor to analyzing the long-term vitality of cities by turning an embrace of density by city dwellers on its head. The virus, of course, altered people's view on density, and even if the pandemic eventually disappears, it may take a long time for people to again embrace density as a virtue, Conn says.

One way urban planners are looking to improve city vitality is to support driverless cars. If Austin and other midsized cities become more crowded, the rise of autonomous vehicles could mean less traffic and congestion — and make cites safer.105

“Self-driving vehicles will have a dramatic impact on urban life when they begin to blur the distinction between private and public modes of transportation,” the global consulting firm McKinsey & Co., said in a 2015 report. “Clearing the roads of four out of five cars has momentous consequences for cities, by measures such as environment, traffic, efficiency, and even parking. In most cities, for example, designated parking accounts for a huge amount of land, which ends up being useless for most of the day. With fewer cars, much of this space could be freed for other uses.”106

Ultimately, though, the reasons people will choose to live in the city long-term will no longer rely on work, Conn says. “People who are committed to an urban life are committed for a whole host of reasons, and a job is only one of them.”

“Of course, when the pandemic hit, there was a lot of reason for doom and gloom, and a fear that we would go back to a 1970s-style urban crisis,” Conn says. “I think everyone was a little hasty with that. Cities are going to do just fine.”

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Pro/Con

Have cities been permanently transformed by the pandemic?

Pro John Rennie Short Professor, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Written for CQ Researcher, June 2022 The pandemic greatly disrupted city life. Offices emptied out, commercial spaces closed, cafes and restaurants were shuttered and roads were largely silent. More people worked from home. People moved from metro cores to suburban areas and from large metros to small metros. Nonmetro areas saw the greatest net in-movement. In 2020, mass transit lost 75 percent of its ridership from March 1 to April 26. There has been some return. In Washington, for example, bus transit is now back to 87 percent of prepandemic ridership, but the Metro has failed to get beyond 35 percent. Mass transit systems were kept afloat with government funding, but as this dries up, they may face major fiscal problems in the years to come — especially because many people are still reluctant to use public transport. Many retail and commercial stores in city centers were closed and have had a hard time re-establishing their position. We are in a new normal of more purchasing taking place over the internet. Many stores and retail will close or wither away. The decline of the five-day-a-week model for office working will have a major impact on cities. The traditional downtown of predominantly commercial species will change. There will be greater conversions of existing office and commercial space into residencies and nonoffice usage. There has been a rise in crime since the pandemic, with several factors at work, including greater youth unemployment, less social welfare and a clogged judicial system leading to more bad actors on the streets. The rise of serious crime is one of the more distressing features of the urban impacts of the pandemic. It is difficult to say whether this is temporary or a new normal. The most devastating effects of the virus were faced by lower-income people of color. The pandemic reinforced structural inequality in cities across the country. Urban economies in general, however, have made a very fast recovery. We've added 20.8 million new jobs since April 2020 in a quite remarkable recovery. The unemployment rate is now down to 3.6 percent, very close to prepandemic levels. As the pandemic recedes, the attractions of central cities may reappear. Cities encourage cultural creativity and economic vitality. As places of collective expression, they are one of our best inventions. The pandemic forced us to reimagine our cities. The sharp cessation of vehicle traffic allowed us to both imagine and implement more convivial cities built less around the private car and commuter and more around the pedestrian and nonmotorist. Cities will change. They always do. But over the long term the city will survive, as it's a place where economic linkages are improved by maintaining trust with face-to-face contact.

Con Ingrid Gould Ellen Paulette Goddard Professor of Urban Policy and Planning, Faculty Director, NYU Furman Center, Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University. Written for CQ Researcher, June 2022 If there is anything certain about city life in the 21st century, it is unpredictability. From terrorism to global pandemics and growing climate-related risks, the last 20 years have shown that threats can emerge in an instant. City leaders will need to become more flexible in order to thrive in this environment, allowing their land and buildings to adapt to known and unknown threats. Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic shocked cities — in particular, their commercial districts. The increase in the number of people working remotely during the health crisis reduced overall demand for commercial office space and upended the economics of cities built around central business districts. Remote work is unlikely to disappear any time soon. It seems more plausible that those who are able will settle on three or four days per week in the office. As a result of more hybrid work options, some college-educated professionals may choose to leave cities, looking for more space. Others may move, fearing disease and other “demons” such as congestion and crime they view as associated with density. (Importantly, the perceived connection between density and disease seems misplaced, World Bank data indicate.) Fears of urban living could lead to migration trends that threaten city budgets and undermine the crucial benefits that dense, transit-rich cities deliver: lower per capita greenhouse gas emissions, innovation and economic growth. Still, the death of cities has been prophesied throughout history, and such predictions have generally aged poorly. Most businesses expect workers to return to the office to some degree. Recent research suggests that virtual settings curb idea generation and innovation. Remote employees also work more uncompensated hours and face diminished prospects of promotion, either because they are less productive or less visible. Ultimately, people choose to live in cities not just because that's where they are called into work, but because of the diversity, cultural vitality and sustainability that cities offer. The proximity and scale of cities continue to facilitate interaction and provide access to specialized goods and services that can't be found elsewhere. Research shows telecommuters are actually more prone to live in cities and metro areas. The changes spurred by COVID-19 may ultimately be redistributive rather than foundational, as some people may move from large tech and finance centers to smaller cities. And cities of all sizes will need to adapt to these shifting preferences by building ample affordable and market-rate housing, facilitating the conversion of commercial downtowns into mixed-use neighborhoods and designing more sustainable and resilient buildings and neighborhoods. With these strategies, cities can prosper and transform as they always have, turning crisis into opportunity and rebirth.

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Discussion Questions

Here are some issues to consider regarding the future of cities:

• Why did a large number of people leave major cities such as Chicago, San Francisco and New York during the COVID-19 pandemic?

• Do you think the pandemic will cause the death of the U.S. city? Why or why not?

• When did the United States' transformation from a mostly rural to a mostly urban society take place? What factors led to this transformation?

• Why did the homeless crisis become more visible during the pandemic?

• Remote and hybrid work became more prevalent during COVID-19. Why are some city leaders encouraging an end to remote work?

• In your opinion, how can public transit systems regain ridership post-pandemic? Do you use public transportation?

• What is the essential feature of the so-called 15-minute-city? What are its pros and cons?

• Given the choice to live in a city, suburb or small town, which would you prefer? Why?

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Short Features

Pandemic Disrupts Growth of Public Transportation

Just as office buildings and city centers emptied when the pandemic hit, so did public transportation systems. In fact, some experts believe that transportation was one of the industries hardest hit by COVID-19.1

In New York City, for instance, the public transportation agency, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), suffered its biggest passenger loss in modern times. Back in 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression, ridership on the city's subways fell 13 percent; in 2020, the falloff reached 95 percent at one point, although it is slowly recovering.2

At its lowest point, nationwide ridership on public transportation during the pandemic fell to 20 percent of 2019 levels.3 “Travel in the U.S. cratered in spring 2020,” stated a report by the Urban Institute, a think tank that studies issues related to cities.

Before the pandemic, public transportation was on the upswing after decades of decline. The number of Americans who commuted to work on public transportation dropped from 13 percent in 1960 to just 5 percent in 2018, according to federal data cited in a report by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. In fact, Boston withdrew a bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics because of concerns that the city's public transportation system could not handle the influx of visitors.4

A man skateboards on the empty platform in one of Boston's downtown transit stations in 2020. As the pandemic emptied downtown office buildings, public transportation ridership dropped dramatically, exacting steep losses in revenue — and many riders say they will not return. (Getty Images/The Boston Globe/David L. Ryan)

But a revival of city centers and the regional growth that encouraged people to live farther away from where they work was luring these commuters to use buses and trains to avoid crowded highways. New York City and Washington, which operate the nation's two largest transit systems, invested heavily in improvements. Transit ridership grew significantly in the United States in December 2019 and January and February 2020.5

Then, as the pandemic took hold, U.S. public transportation ridership dropped 81 percent in April 2020, according to data from the National Transit Database, which is compiled by the Federal Transit Administration. There were 158.5 million rides taken in April 2020 compared to 835.1 million in April 2019.6

“The impact has been truly unprecedented in terms of the ridership losses and the revenue losses that we've seen to the industry,” said Paul Skoutelas, president and CEO of the American Public Transportation Association, which represents transit agencies.7

Overall, in addition to the growth of remote working, fear of COVID-19 seemed to prompt people to stay in their cars rather than take public transportation. During the pandemic, used car sales jumped. Bikes sales grew as well.8

Still, transit agencies continued to operate buses and trains that moved millions of people, particularly essential workers, during the pandemic. Lower-income people remained loyal customers. In fact, public transportation demand during the pandemic pivoted to communities with a large share of Black and Hispanic workers, as well as lower-income people.9

In some cities, that led to a shift in ridership from trains to buses, which tend to reach a wider network of communities and workplaces.10 A survey from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority found that 82 percent of Black customers kept riding the bus during the pandemic. Among regular bus riders, 70 percent of those who earn less than $30,000 kept riding during the pandemic, the survey found.11

Initially, public transportation agencies tried to maintain social distancing by increasing service on routes to prevent overcrowding.12

Some transit agencies made significant changes. Washington shut down some Metro stations and sped up construction plans. It has also decreased train frequency during peak hours in order to shorten wait times at other periods.13

But in the end, surveys of transit riders indicate that many customers do not plan to return. For example, a survey of 2,400 Washington-area residents found nearly 40 percent plan to use public transportation less than they did before the pandemic.14

Going forward, transit agencies, like employers and cities overall, are trying to offer goodies to lure back riders. Ideas include sending transit passes with monthly utility bills and working with apartment landlords to combine leases with transit passes.15

Because of a drop in revenue from local governments and paying riders, many public transit systems around the country are in financial jeopardy.16 And even though the federal government provided two rounds of relief funds, public transit authorities are looking at a projected shortfall of $39.3 billion through the end of 2023, according to the American Public Transportation Association.17

Ultimately, though, transit experts say there will always be a base of riders for public transportation, even with a move to teleworking.

“The rush-hour ridership may have fallen, but people are still using public transportation to go everywhere every day,” says Jarrett Walker, a transportation consultant based in Portland, Ore.

Construction workers, first responders and essential employees, said Patrick Foye, the former head of the New York MTA, “don't have the ability to Zoom into work.”18

— Holly Rosenkrantz

[1] Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez, “It could take nearly a decade for public transit to return to pre-pandemic levels,” Fortune, Nov. 21, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/4z37sutp.

[2] Justin George et al., “The pandemic changed the workday, but will transit riders return?” The Washington Post, April 16, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/3cj37utx.

[3] Jorge Morales-Burnett and Yonah Freemark, “The Way Transit Agencies Adapted During the Pandemic Can Inform an Equitable Recovery,” Urban Institute, Nov. 30, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/ydphuy3z; “Monthly Module Adjusted Data Release,” Federal Transit Administration, March 2022, https://tinyurl.com/3jmrftew.

[4] Laura Bliss, “Behind the Gains in U.S. Public Transit Ridership,” Bloomberg, Jan. 13, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/5hbr47hm; Randal O'Toole, “Charting Public Transit's Decline,” Cato Institute, Nov. 18, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/yckse39f; and Philip Marcelo, “Boston Olympics organizers: Report didn't analyze details,” The Associated Press, Aug. 18, 2015, https://tinyurl.com/3u4aan34.

[5] “On the Horizon: Planning for Post-Pandemic Travel,” American Public Transportation Association, November 2021, https://tinyurl.com/5236y8ba; Bliss, op. cit.; and Ibid.

[6] “2020 National Transit Database,” Federal Transit Administration, https://tinyurl.com/56n7vphb; Kaitlyn Bancroft, “Public transportation was in trouble before COVID-19. Can it bounce back?” The Salt Lake Tribune, Feb. 24, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2p8ww8k2.

[7] Elliott Ramos and Aadit Tambe, “The pandemic sank mass transit use. Data show its slow recovery,” NBC News, July 22, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2u3ev952.

[8] Somini Sengupta et al., “Riders Are Abandoning Buses and Trains. That's a Problem for Climate Change,” The New York Times, May 27, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/mufcu3c7.

[9] George et al., op. cit.

[10] Ibid.

[11] “Board Action/Information Summary,” Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, https://tinyurl.com/3xjd5sk9; George et al., op. cit.

[12] “Continuing Impacts of COVID-19 on Public Transit Agencies,” American Public Transportation Association, April 2020, https://tinyurl.com/3jwunbr5.

[13] “Public transit systems face plunging revenue amid the coronavirus pandemic,” The Associated Press, Fortune, May 5, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ycya4w46; George et al., op. cit.

[14] George, ibid.

[15] Jorge Gonzalez-Hermoso and Yonah Freemark, “After Massive Transit Losses during the Pandemic, Agencies Are Planning a Comeback,” Urban Institute, Dec. 2, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/4za4kz36.

[16] Ramos and Tambe, op. cit.

[17] “The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Public Transit Funding Needs in the U.S.,” American Public Transportation Association, Jan. 27, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/mtttve2v.

[18] George et al., op. cit.

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Pandemic Worsens Homeless Crisis in U.S. Cities

Were the tent cities always there?

That is the question that arose as city streets emptied during the height of the pandemic, but the tent encampments sheltering the homeless did not.

With fewer people crowding the most populous cities to avoid COVID-19, complaints grew about homelessness. Encampments became more visible on city sidewalks and beneath overpasses.

In New York City, there was a rise in the number of people sleeping in subways. City officials across the country reported that complaints increased about encampments as Americans wanted to return to the streets after months of pandemic quarantines.19

“The visibility of the homeless population is greater than it ever has been. The encampments are bigger, there are more tents. And that's created a very real concern,” said Heidi Marston, former executive director of Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.20

“It doesn't matter where you are now,” said Jon Scholes, the president of the Downtown Seattle Association, an organization that aims to bolster that city's center. “You see people who are visibly homeless.”21

One reason for the increase in urban tent cities is an increase in homeless people avoiding shelters because they are afraid of the virus. Moreover, cities that moved people out of shelters to avoid COVID-19 did not always have enough hotel space to house them.22 And the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended against breaking up tent encampments during the peak of the pandemic out of concern that it would disperse people with COVID-19.23

Housing experts say that homelessness did indeed get worse in some cities during the height of the pandemic. The Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated that 226,000 Americans were living unsheltered in December 2020, an increase of 30 percent since 2015. A 2 percent increase in the country's overall homeless population between 2019 and 2020 is entirely due to an increase of unsheltered homelessness.24

In Washington, for example, the number of chronically unhoused people grew by more than 20 percent in 2020.25 The Denver metro area in 2021 saw a 99 percent increase in people experiencing homelessness since the pandemic began.26

People of color are overrepresented among populations experiencing homelessness — African Americans represent 13 percent of the general population, but account for 39 percent of people experiencing homelessness and more than 50 percent of homeless families with children.27 At the end of 2020, 18 out of every 100,000 people in the United States were homeless.28

“The pandemic has only made the homelessness crisis worse,” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge said.29

This has led to a rise in encampments in cities across the country. City leaders have been stymied by the complex issue of whether to clear out these encampments. For the first time ever, the federal government in 2021 issued a report on homeless encampments in U.S. cities and found that removing urban tent cities is often ineffective. That is because clearing tent cities can cost millions of dollars and the work of multiple government agencies, without really solving the homelessness problem, while creating new trauma for people living in the tent encampments.30

As cities emptied during the COVID-19 pandemic, unhoused people, such as Chris Hines, who has lived in a tent under a railway tunnel in Washington for seven years, became more visible. Such encampments grew as people avoided shelters for fear of the virus. (Getty Images/The Washington Post/Michael S. Williamson)

“It's a hard tradeoff for cities,” said Lauren Dunton, senior associate for Abt Associates, who worked with the government on the report. “Cities are funding these responses, and in a lot of cases, that's money that would have been going to something else. They're not able to utilize federal resources to the same extent as traditional homeless service programs that get funding.”31

Moreover, the issue of increasingly visible homeless encampments in American cities has ignited a political debate in areas that tend to lean liberal politically. Some advocates argue that sweeps to break up encampments are traumatic to the people living there, who may also be dealing with substance abuse or mental illness. Others argue that allowing people to live outside is not a solution.32

Increased funding to address the issue does not always solve it. California spent more than $13 billion in three years to reduce homelessness. Still, half the country's total unsheltered population live in California.33 California is expected to break its spending record on this issue and has allocated $4.8 billion over the next three years.34

The issue, of course, is also tied to the lack of affordable housing in major U.S. cities. New York City has more homeless residents than any other city. In their book Homelessness Is a Housing Problem, Gregg Colburn and Clayton Page Aldern argue that cities with the worst homelessness problems have taken in an influx of residents without building enough new housing — which means lower vacancy rates and higher rents.35

So, cities are being flexible with the type of shelters they invest in. Some are focusing, for example, on so-called “anytime” shelters that are available at varying times during the day versus just overnight.36

And some cities are cracking down on public homelessness. In New York City, officials said this year they would have a zero-tolerance policy for people sleeping in the subway stations and trains, with a promise to remove more than 1,000 people who shelter there regularly.37

Ultimately, some city leaders say that pandemic-exacerbated homelessness is a symptom of the rising income inequality that COVID-19 has fueled.

“We're the richest country in the world. At the end of the day, it's really an embarrassment to have people who had their income increase exponentially during the pandemic and yet other people are losing their homes,” said Ras Baraka, mayor of Newark, N.J. “It's embarrassing to democracy, to equality, to our exceptionalism.”38

— Holly Rosenkrantz

[19] Kriston Capps, “Why We Don't Know How the Pandemic Affected U.S. Homelessness,” Bloomberg, Feb. 4, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/m3u2wcjn; Kriston Capps, “The High Cost of Clearing Tent Cities,” Bloomberg, April 12, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/43z976fj.

[20] Trevor Hughes, Bill Keveney, and Romina Ruiz-Goiriena, “As national housing crisis spirals, cities criminalize homeless people, ban tents, close parks,” USA Today, Oct. 15, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/y337e86n.

[21] “The pandemic has made homelessness more visible in many American cities,” The Economist, Aug. 6, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/y7pv5t8h.

[22] Ibid.

[23] “CDC Advises Against Clearing Homeless Encampments if Alternate Housing is Not Available During Coronavirus Outbreak,” National Low Income Housing Coalition, March 30, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/2p884233.

[24] “The pandemic has made homelessness more visible in many American cities,” op. cit.; “What to do about Skid Row,” The Economist, May 15, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/bdfjhe8x; The Economist, op. cit.

[25] Justin Wm. Moyer, “More than year into pandemic, mixed signals on homelessness in D.C.,” The Washington Post, April 29, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2sbufm9b; “Clearing Camps: The Pandemic, America's Cities, and Homelessness,” NPR, Nov. 16, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/4yp8nd69.

[26] Trevor Hughes, op. cit.

[27] “Homelessness and Radical Disparities, National Alliance to End Homelessness, https://tinyurl.com/ba93u9f2.

[28] Alexandra Kelley, “HUD says homelessness in US exploded, before and during pandemic,” The Hill, March 18, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/y77h6fm2.

[29] Pam Fessler, “HUD: Growth of Homelessness During 2020 Was ‘Devastating’, Even Before The Pandemic,” 1A NPR, March 18, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/yrmyewne.

[30] Lauren Dunton et al., “Exploring Homelessness Among People Living in Encampments and Associated Cost: City Approaches to Encampments and What They Cost,” Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research, April 5, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2zrpcmdm.

[31] “The High Cost of Clearing Tent Cities,” op. cit.

[32] “What to Do About Skid Row,” op. cit.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Nathaniel Lee, “With more than half a million Americans unhoused, the U.S. is still struggling to solve the homelessness crisis,” CNBC, Jan. 7, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/ydw2euzj.

[35] Gregg Colburn and Clayton Page Aldern, “Homelessness is a Housing Problem,” Sightline Institute, March 16, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/ysy2zheb.

[36] Hughes, op. cit.

[37] Andy Neuman, Dana Rubinstein and Michael Gold, “New York City Plans to Stop Homeless People From Sheltering in the Subway,” The New York Times, Feb. 18, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/yckkztkp.

[38] Hughes, Keveney and Ruiz-Goiriena, op. cit.

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Bibliography

Books

Conn, Steven, Americans Against the City: Anti-Urbanism in the Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press, 2014. An urban affairs expert studies the history of anti-urbanism in the United States.

Florida, Richard, The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class and What We Can Do About It, Basic Books, 2017. A historian blasts “winner-take-all urbanism” as the reason for inequality, segregation and poverty in cities.

Mohl, Raymond, A. and Roger Biles, eds., The Making of Urban America, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012. The fourth edition of this urban affairs classic will be published in August 2022. It traces urban development starting with the preindustrial city.

Articles

Altucher, James, “New York City is dead forever,” New York Post, Aug. 17, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yckkup7n. A former hedge fund manager and comedy club owner laments the end of New York City due to the pandemic.

Crampton, Liza, and Lisa Kashinsky, “Violent crime to labor shortages: Mayors say Covid's toll on cities is far-reaching,” Politico, Feb. 9, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/ykmxd4yb. A Politico survey of 25 mayors looks at the pressures cities are facing from COVID-19.

Florida, Richard, and Adam Ozimek, “How Remote Work is Reshaping America's Urban Geography,” The Wall Street Journal, March 5, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/24hwbswx. Two experts on urban affairs examine the role of remote work in altering U.S. cities.

McGahey, Richard, “Has Covid-19 Changed Cities Forever? Probably Not,” Forbes, Oct. 25, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/39tb35bs. An economist argues that cities will remain the center of the global economy, but the pandemic will affect different industries and parts of the workforce unevenly.

Rennie Short, John, and Michael J. Orlando, “Why COVID-19 won't kill cities,” The Conversation, Jan. 25, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/bddjrec9. Two urban studies scholars explain why they think cities will endure.

Thompson, Derek, “The Five-Day Workweek is Dying,” The Atlantic, Feb. 23, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/275393vy. A journalist explores the implications of a permanent move away from the five-day workweek.

Reports and Studies

Beschloss, Cyrus, “2022 Axios-Generation Lab ‘Next Cities Index,’” The Generation Lab, March 14, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/ph52hyrr. This report explores how the pandemic has affected the decisions young people make on where they want to live.

Mouratidis, Kostas, “How COVID-19 reshaped quality of life in cities: A synthesis and implications for urban planning,” Land Use Policy, December 2021, https://tinyurl.com/mrx38px9. An academic study synthesizes the literature on cities and quality of life during COVID-19.

Myers, Dowell, “Peak Millennials: Three Reinforcing Cycles That Amplify the Rise and Fall of Urban Concentration by Millennials,” Housing Policy Debate, April 25, 2016, https://tinyurl.com/2swzsk6r. This analysis looks at the impact of Millennials in urban centers.

Parker, Kim, Juliana Menasce Horowitz and Rachel Minkin, “Americans Are Less Likely Than Before COVID-19 To Want To Live in Cities, More Likely To Prefer Suburbs,” Pew Research Center, Dec. 16, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/yck3a4ns. A study shows that nearly half of the people surveyed say the pandemic has divided their communities.

Ramani, Arjun, and Nicholas Bloom, “The Donut Effect of Covid-19 on Cities,” National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2p83s6rn. Two researchers used data from the U.S. Postal Service and the real estate site Zillow to quantify the effects of COVID-19 on migration patterns and real estate markets in the United States.

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The Next Step

Crime

Bloom, Laura Begley, “Crime In America: Study Reveals The 10 Most Unsafe Cities (It's Not Where You Think),” Forbes, Feb. 23, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/yeym8h7v. Many of the most dangerous cities in the United States are in the South and Midwest, with St. Louis topping the list.

Dave, Paresh, “U.S. cities are backing off banning facial recognition as crime rises,” Reuters, May 26, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/mrxru4ed. A surge in crime and a push from developers is returning facial recognition security software to popularity after years of controversy surrounding racial biases and privacy, during which some localities banned the technology.

Lach, Erik, “A Subway Shooting That New York City Overlooked,” The New Yorker, May 14, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/4wyxh9nb. The murder of a young man in a Queens subway station has come to exemplify the crime surge that has beset the New York transit system.

Nightlife

Armus, Teo, “Nearly two years into the pandemic, the crowds are (almost) back to partying like it's 2019,” The Washington Post, Feb. 27, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2p8kaw47. Nightlife in Washington is almost back to normal as bars fill with patrons no longer worried about COVID-19.

Krishna, Priya, “Leave the Sweatshirt at Home. Dining Dress Codes Are Back,” The New York Times, May 17, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2p99bk68. Many new restaurants in New York City have opened with expectations for dinner attire, betting that customers will be happy to dress up to go out after spending so much time at home during the pandemic.

Mercado, Melody, “Here Are The New Rules For Minors At Millennium Park,” Block Club Chicago, May 24, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2p83csv5. Chicago introduced a youth curfew for Millennium Park, forbidding those younger than age 18 to visit the downtown park after 6 p.m. unless accompanied by an adult, in an effort to curb violence in an area popular with tourists.

Offices

Kane, Kenny, “Why Commercial Real Estate Investors Are Betting On Shared Office Spaces,” Forbes, May 26, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/6kdza3bm. The popularity of shared office space is projected to grow significantly in coming years, as companies work to provide a central hub without paying for a lot of space.

Shaver, Katherine, “As office-centric downtowns struggle, suburbs cater to the laptop crowd,” The Washington Post, May 25, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/mwe2wcnc. Suburbia is thriving with new amenities to cater to workers who now rarely go into city offices for work, as downtown eateries and shops struggle.

Zilber, Ariel, “NYC workers lag US in returning to office over fears of subway crime, COVID,” New York Post, May 22, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2uhrsuef. Nearly all New York City office workers said in a survey that not enough is being done to address subway crime, and this has become the largest obstacle in getting employees in the city — 80 percent of whom commute by subway — back in the office.

Transit

Bosman, Julie, et al., “U.S. cities want to return to pre-pandemic life. One obstacle: transit crime,” The New York Times, April 25, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/mr3mv96m. Crime on transit systems has risen above prepandemic levels in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area and New York.

Castillo, Ambar, “Metro Is Slowly Moving To Improve Longstanding Issues,” Washington City Paper, May 25, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/mwsze8c5. The Metro transit system in Washington is addressing a host of issues, including delays, safety concerns and agency leadership departures, as it struggles to bounce back from the pandemic.

Meyer, David, “NYC subway suicide attempts spike 50% in first months of 2022,” New York Post, May 25, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/ya26n5j7. Suicide attempts on New York subway tracks are more frequent than they were before the pandemic.

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Contacts

Better Cities & Towns
P.O. Box 6515, Ithaca, NY 14851
607-275-3087
bettercities.net
Nonprofit group that runs an online publication providing news and analysis about mixed-used growth and development to a largely professional audience.

Boston University Initiative on Cities
76 Bay State Road, Boston, MA 02215
617-358-8080
bu.edu/ioc
A university organization that conducts research and works with urban leaders on policy solutions.

Brookings Metro
1775 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20036
202-797-6000
brookings.edu/program/brookings-metro
A public policy organization that works with city leaders on research and policy solutions.

Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
1033 Massachusetts Ave., 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02138
617-495-7908
jchs.harvard.edu
An interdisciplinary center that produces reports and holds conferences on issues related to housing such as homeownership and rental policies, community development and housing demographics.

National League of Cities
660 N. Capitol St., N.W., Washington, DC 20001
877-827-2385
nlc.org
Urban advocacy group that seeks to influence federal policies.

Pew Research Center
1615 L St., N.W., Suite 800, Washington, DC 20036
202-419-4300
pewresearch.org
Nonpartisan think tank that conducts public opinion polling, demographic research and other data-driven research on poverty.

Urban Institute
2100 M St., N.W., Washington, DC 20037
202-833-7200
urban.org
A think tank that conducts research on housing, low-income families, tax policies and many other subjects.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
451 7th St., S.W., Washington, DC 20410
202-708-1112
hud.gov
Federal department that partners with local public housing authorities to administer public housing, rental assistance, energy programs and public policy.

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Footnotes

[1] Brian Pascus, “‘Burn the Zoom app’: Hochul holds court with business leaders in Midtown,” Crain's New York Business, Feb. 3, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/4yyax8c6.

[2] Alexander Nazaryan, “Biden urges return to office,” Yahoo News, March 4, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/275yz58a.

[3] William H. Frey, “New census data shows a huge spike in movement out of big metro area during the pandemic,” The Brookings Institution, April 14, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/bdh874ew.

[4] Carolina Sanchez-Paramo et al., “COVID-19 leaves a legacy of rising poverty and widening inequality,” Let's Talk Development, The World Bank, Oct. 7, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2632fs49; Jorge Gonzalez-Hermoso and Yonah Freemark, “After Massive Transit Losses during the Pandemic, Agencies Are Planning a Comeback,” Urban Institute, Dec. 2, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/yckjz27s.

[5] Robin Pomeroy and Ross Chainey, “Has COVID killed our cities?” World Economic Forum, Nov. 12, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/2nynuxtu; James Altucher, “New York City is dead forever,” New York Post, Aug. 17, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/em7wyj7a.

[6] Kim Parker, Juliana Menasce Horowitz and Rachel Minkin, “Americans Are Less Likely Than Before COVID-19 To Want To Live in Cities, More Likely To Prefer Suburbs,” Pew Research Center, Dec. 16, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2p8mccrv; Cyrus Beschloss, “2022 Axios-Generation Lab ‘Next Cities Index,’” The Generation Lab, March 14, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2p82phz8; and Abha Bhattarai, Chris Alcantara and Andrew Van Dam, “Rents are rising everywhere. See how much prices are up in your area,” The Washington Post, April 21, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/yckwrdme.

[7] John Rennie Short and Michael J. Orlando, “COVID-19 won't kill cities,” Fast Company, Jan. 2, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/42zhxdcb.

[8] Richard Fry and D'Vera Cohn, “In 2020, fewer Americans moved, exodus from cities slowed,” Pew Research Center, Dec. 16, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/ytuvp65b.

[9] Ibid.; Ben Popken, “Millions of Americans moved during the pandemic — and most aren't looking back,” NBC News, Dec. 31, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/mum4frt7; Quincy Walters, “Pandemic Pilgrims Flee Big Cities for Less Crowded Areas,” WBUR.com , July 22, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/5n6tvwtx.

[10] Jed Kolko, Emily Badger and Quoctrung Bui, “How the Pandemic Did, and Didn't, Change Where Americans Move,” The New York Times, April 19, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/ms4ak6rd.

[11] Hyojung Lee, “Are Millennials Leaving Cities? Yes, But Young Adults Are Not,” Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, May 12, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2p8d2apd.

[12] Hyojung Lee, “Reconciling the Back-to-the-City Thesis With Sustained Suburban Growth,” Joint Center for Housing Studies Of Harvard University, Oct. 16, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/52xc9a6b.

[13] Abha Bhattarai, “Rents are up more than 30 percent in some cities, forcing millions to find another place to live,” The Washington Post, Jan. 30, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/4724nsf7; Hannah Tan, “How Much Does an Apartment Cost?” Redfin Blog, March 2, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/yc4kub9m.

[14] “Rents are rising everywhere,” op. cit.

[15] “Rents are up more than 30 percent,” op. cit.

[16] “Five Commercial Real Estate Trends to Watch in the Wake of COVID-19,” The National Law Review, Nov. 19, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/mry2cntu.

[17] Howard Chernick, David Copeland and David Merriman, “The Impact of Work From Home on Commercial Property Values and the Property Tax in U.S. Cities,” Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Nov. 4. 2021, https://tinyurl.com/mrxj8t5d.

[18] Arjun Ramani and Nicholas Bloom, “The donut effect: How COVID-19 shapes real estate,” Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, January 2021, https://tinyurl.com/3ddzep6m.

[19] Angie Basiouny, “What's Going to Happen to All Those Empty Office Buildings?” Knowledge at Wharton, Feb. 28, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/ykppnrc3.

[20] Basiouny, op. cit.

[21] T. P. Yeatts, “How commercial real estate survived the pandemic,” The Real Deal, Oct. 14, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2s3j3f8n.

[22] Brin Snelling, “2021 Trends And Future Outlook For Retail Real Estate Leasing,” Forbes, Dec. 17, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2p99h6un.

[23] Amanda Pérez Pintado, “How the crime rate is preventing some US cities from the ‘return to normal,’” USA Today, May 5, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/3wbjjmpn.

[24] Tim Sablik, “Has the Pandemic Changed Cities Forever?” Econ Focus, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, First Quarter 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2fs8s298.

[25] Roland Li, “Austin was the ‘biggest winner’ of COVID tech migration. What happens to Silicon Valley?” San Francisco Chronicle, July 14, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/3nwht7s6.

[26] Stephan D. Whitaker, “Did the COVID-19 Pandemic Cause an Urban Exodus?” District Data Brief, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Feb. 5, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/bdh5h2hw.

[27] Marco della Cava, “Will San Francisco, New York and other big cities recover from COVID-19? What a post-vaccine city could look like,” USA Today, Dec. 19, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/5fv7a38s.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Kristin Tate, “Is this the end of cities in America?” The Hill, Dec. 13, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/2p8uk8rj.

[30] Richard McGahey, “States And Cities Need Washington's Immediate Budget Help,” Forbes, Feb. 10, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/3xt7pmxj.

[31] Rebecca Jennings, “The case for large cities in a post-pandemic world,” Vox, Jan. 4, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/yy7ekkav.

[32] Matt Phillips, “Signs of stress deepen in the office real estate market,” Axios, March 29, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/mtp6enz2; Emily Peck, “End of an office era,” Axios, March 23, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/3hzu4u3y.

[33] Elsa Wenzel, “In the business of buildings, net zero becomes a towering target,” GreenBiz, Nov. 1, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/27xm56w8.

[34] Andrea Riquier, “New York City's office buildings lost 17% of their value in the pandemic,” MarketWatch, Oct. 9, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2p98z2yz; “The Office Sector in New York City,” Office of the New York State Comptroller, October 2021, https://tinyurl.com/29dvrsxj.

[35] Neil Dutta, “America's red-hot housing market is about to kick-start the Great Commercial Building Boom,” Insider, Feb. 3, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/3dhspc2y.

[36] Ibid.

[37] “Architecture Billings Index,” American Institute of Architects, accessed May 26, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2p95ew8b.

[38] Dutta, op. cit.

[39] Ibid.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Dan Rosenbloom, “Seven Trends Driving Commercial Real Estate In 2022,” Forbes, Feb. 16, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/46s72uxr.

[42] Ibid.

[43] Andrea Riquier, “Can empty offices become affordable housing? New legislation seeks to try,” MarketWatch, Aug. 24, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/mrxtrmu9; “S.2511,” Government Printing Office, accessed May 26, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/5n8t95ue.

[44] John Murray et al., “Commercial Real Estate: The Office Market in a Post-COVID World,” PIMCO, Aug. 16, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/5bd9ed2v.

[45] “The 2030 Challenge,” Architecture 2030, https://tinyurl.com/27xm56w8.

[46] Wenzel, op. cit.

[47] Joseph Gyourko, Christopher Mayer and Todd Sinai, “Superstar Cities,” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2013, https://tinyurl.com/9n39t2vy.

[48] Richard Florida and Adam Ozimek, “How Remote Work is Reshaping American's Urban Geography,” The Wall Street Journal, March 5, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/7srbypdh.

[49] Ibid.

[50] Robert D. Atkinson, Mark Muro and Jacob Whiton, “The case for growth centers: How to spread tech innovation across America,” The Brookings Institution, Dec. 9, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/2p86483m.

[51] Florida and Ozimek, op. cit.

[52] Dana Rubinstein and Nicole Hong, “As Remote Work Becomes Permanent, Can Manhattan Adapt?” The New York Times, April 14, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/5x675atv.

[53] Ibid.

[54] Jonathan I. Dingel and Brent Neiman, “How Many Jobs Can Be Done at Home?” National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yv5ck5zn.

[55] “Partnership for New York City Employee Survey Results,” Morning Consult, March 2022, https://tinyurl.com/4538cpyz; Ginia Bellafante, “Wait, What if People Did Just Stay Home in Their Pajamas?” The New York Times, April 15, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/4u3fyy7w.

[56] Chris Grosso, “How hybrid work is reshaping cities,” Fast Company, Feb. 11, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/59khdbvh.

[57] Ibid.

[58] Holden Walter-Warner, “Jamie Dimon to work-from-homers: You win,” The Real Deal: New York Real Estate News, April 4, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2zw8m4fw; Kim Velsey, “The Junior Bankers Are Winning,” New York, April 5, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/5fmjmrpb.

[59] John Rennie Short and Michael J. Orlando, “Why COVID-19 won't kill cities,” The Conversation, Jan. 25, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/ye2y996s.

[60] Michael Hendrix, “The Death and Life of Modern American Cities,” Medium.com, Jan. 30, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/5n7uy5zd.

[61] Thomas Jefferson, “Query XIX: The present state of manufactures, commerce, interior and exterior trade?” Notes on the State of Virginia, https://tinyurl.com/y7dm4scm.

[62] “City Life in the Late 19th Century,” Library of Congress, https://tinyurl.com/32bzhyd6.

[63] “Growth of Cities,” PBS.org , https://tinyurl.com/4ucybucm.

[64] “City Life in the Late 19th Century,” op. cit.

[65] Elizabeth Yuko, “How the Industrial Revolution Fueled the Growth of Cities,” History.com , Nov. 18, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/9rru56c7.

[66] Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York (1890).

[67] “From the Countryside to the City,” U.S. History, Pre-Columbian to the New Millennium, Independence Hall Association, http://tinyurl.com/q3f4458.

[68] Stephen Smith, “A Tale of Two Ways to Hate Cities,” Pacific Standard, June 14, 2017, https://tinyurl.com/3k2wb5bd; Richard Florida, “The Rise of Anti-Urbanism,” The Atlantic, May 23, 2009, https://tinyurl.com/4tp6kz68.

[69] Steven Conn, “The anti-urban tradition in America: why Americans dislike their cities,” OUPblog, Oct. 10, 2014, https://tinyurl.com/2rc49tap.

[70] Ibid.

[71] Rennie Short and Orlando, op. cit.; Ke Chen, “Industrial Agglomeration,” International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment and Technology, March 6, 2017, https://tinyurl.com/2bf2kz7u.

[72] David Frum, “The Cultural Roots of Crime,” The Atlantic, June 19, 2016, https://tinyurl.com/mkh5npea; Hendrix, op. cit.

[73] Edward B. Fiske, “U.S. Says Most Growth in 80's Was in Major Metropolitan Areas,” The New York Times, Feb. 21, 1991, https://tinyurl.com/5n8dtbnt.

[74] Fred Siegel, “Trading Places,” The New York Times, Aug. 10, 2012, https://tinyurl.com/2p83hptk.

[75] Hendrix, op. cit.

[76] Aidan Lewis and Bill McKenna, “Washington DC from murder capital to boomtown,” BBC News, Aug. 6, 2014, https://tinyurl.com/2p8z3ztk; Matt Ford, “What Caused the Great Crime Decline in the U.S.,” The Atlantic, April 15, 2016, https://tinyurl.com/4u6drfes.

[77] Ari Shapiro, “All-American Streetcar Boom Fuels Urban Future,” Weekend Edition Saturday, Feb. 12, 2011, https://tinyurl.com/ywnaz8pk.

[78] Derek Thompson, “Superstar Cities Are in Trouble,” The Atlantic, Feb. 1, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/5dfbyyt4; Richard Florida, “The Geography of How We Get to Work,” The Atlantic, July 13, 2011, https://tinyurl.com/mt6x3uhp.

[79] Mark Muro et al., “How COVID-19 will change the nation's long-term economic trends, according to Brookings Metro Scholars,” The Brookings Institution, April 14, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/3sjmnuew; William H. Frey, “Will This Be the Decade of Big City Growth?” The Brookings Institution, May 23, 2014, https://tinyurl.com/yckuhc4a.

[80] Michael B. Sauter, “10 years later, these 28 cities never recovered from the Great Recession,” USA Today, Oct. 12, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/2p8t6wuh; “Fiscal Health of Large U.S. Cities Varied Long After Great Recession's End,” Pew Charitable Trusts, April 2016, https://tinyurl.com/25svdmx8.

[81] Ruth Bender, “Escape to the Country: Why City Living is Losing Its Appeal During the Pandemic,” The Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/2t2e543y; Anne Kadet, “Across the Hudson, Reluctant to Return to New York City,” The Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/5n94zxy5; and Kim Hart, “Coronavirus may prompt migration out of American cities,” Axios, April 30, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ycxxh8em.

[82] Holly Rosenkrantz, “The New Labor Market: Will the ‘Great Recession’ give workers more leverage?” CQ Researcher, Feb. 4, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/5efraya8; Abha Bhattarai, “Job openings hit new records, while 4.5 million Americans quit or changed jobs in March, reflecting labor market strength,” The Washington Post, May 3, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/3bzrvmv9; and Matt Massucci, “The ‘Great Resignation’ is Spurring People to Move — and Changing America,” Newsweek, May 17, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/mr5sbrbt.

[83] Dami Rosanwo, “Cities are Not Going Away According to Urban Dwellers,” The Harris Poll, Feb. 2, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/mucddmfm; Samuel Kling and Alexander Hitch, “Are Urbanites Willing to Ditch Cars for More Sustainable Commutes?” The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, April 5, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/yckw3wmx.

[84] Rosanwo, ibid.

[85] Thompson, op. cit.

[86] Tim Henderson, “The Pandemic Prompted People to Move, But Many Didn't Go Far,” Pew Stateline, March 23, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/5ye7rkez.

[87] Ibid.

[88] Robert Gebeloff, Dana Goldstein and Winnie Hu, “Cities Lost Population in 2021, Leading to the Slowest Years of Growth in U.S. History,” The New York Times, March 24, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2p5j492a.

[89] Ibid.

[90] “2020 Merino Survey of Mayors: COVID-19 Recovery and the Future Of Cities,” Boston University Initiative on Cities, https://tinyurl.com/2p8pnk2t.

[91] Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez and Megha Mukim, “Doubling down on city competitiveness for COVID-19 recovery,” The Brookings Institution, March 16, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/mrjmk7vn; Sameh Wahba et al., “Cities are on the front lines of COVID-19,” The World Bank, May 12, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/48cnw756.

[92] Miguel Eiras Antunes, “Urban Transformation Post-Pandemic: Not Business As Usual,” Forbes, Aug. 30, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/4e7h6bxf.

[93] Lisa Chamberlain, “The Surprising Stickiness of the ‘15-Minute City,’” Common Edge, Jan. 25, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/p6whhnby.

[94] Diogo Santos and Miguel Eiras Antunes, “15-Minute City,” Deloitte, https://tinyurl.com/566thhe8.

[95] Gail Kalinoski, “Office Leasing to Recover by 2025, Cushman & Wakefield Report Predicts,” Commercial Property Executive, Sept. 25, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/3xv6zbhn.

[96] Wilfred Chen, “Tacos, treehouses, virtual golf: top firms try to bribe workers back to the office,” The Guardian, April 15, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2p9et3ta; Edward Segal, “How Employers Are Enticing Workers Back To The Office,” Forbes, April 22, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/56pma5wp; and Madison Stein, “New At Work survey reveals how to get hybrid employees to choose the workplace,” Envoy, April 22, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/27xdwydp.

[97] “Tech Industry Expands Share of US Office-Leasing Activity, Drives Office Market Rent Gains in Most Tech Hubs,” CBRE, Nov. 1, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/mtkw22m4; Kellen Browning, “Big Tech Makes a Big Bet: Offices Are Still the Future,” The New York Times, Feb. 22, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2ehacz8j.

[98] Browning, ibid.; Patricia Kirk, “Tech Industry Driving U.S. Office Leasing, as Companies Expand into New Markets,” WealthManagement.com, March 2, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/5426vsx8.

[99] Henderson, op. cit.; Romy Varghese, “San Francisco Girds for Blow of Office Workers Never Returning,” Bloomberg, March 3, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2p8atufw.

[100] Ibid.

[101] “Mayor London Breed and Business Leaders Announce Commitment to San Francisco,” news release, Office of Mayor London N. Breed, March 3, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/ax8664d2.

[102] Varghese, op. cit.

[103] Andrea Miller, “How relocating Americans created new inflation hot spots,” CNBC, May 19, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2yrwnxj6.

[104] David Montgomery, “Bucking the Pandemic, Austin Is ‘the Hottest Market in the Country,’” The New York Times, Aug. 31, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/mscvze7z.

[105] Andy Cohen, “The Game-Changer For Future Cities: Driverless Cars,” Dialogue 30: The Liveability Issue, Gensler, https://tinyurl.com/yck3bpvm.

[106] Matthew Claudel and Carlo Ratti, “Full speed ahead: How the driverless car could transform the city,” McKinsey Sustainability, Aug. 1, 2015, https://tinyurl.com/yck8jhx6.

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About the Author

Holly Rosenkrantz is a Washington-based freelance journalist who writes about politics, business and health care. She is a former White House correspondent and labor and workplace reporter and has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS News, Bloomberg News and Reuters. Her most recent CQ Researcher report was on the new labor market and the Great Resignation.

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