How will COVID-19 affect the rebirth of US cities?
This thread is not here to supplant the other COVID-19 thread. Please discuss updates on the virus over there.
I have a specific topic in mind. For decades, US cities in particular have contended with a counterpoint which has often served as both competition and a release valve of sorts—their vast and low density suburbs. Loathed on this forum, they are still out there and doing just fine. The social distancing required to prevent the spread of this and any future pandemics can easily be achieved in suburbia, with everyone in their cars. And as we can see, our most dense city, NYC, is right now the epicenter of the epidemic—and why not? It is just so easy for a virus to spread like wildfire in such a crowded environment. Meanwhile, one of our other huge cities, LA, isn’t generating anywhere near the amount of case reports. This gets one thinking that we’ve had a great 20-30 year run in the US where central cities have reasserted or, for the first time asserted, their dominance over their metros due to the desirability of denser urban living. Will the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis change this? |
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Out of curiosity, what are the current numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Chicagoland? In Los Angeles County (not including the other counties of Greater LA), as of now, we have 59 new cases, which brings LA County up to 351 total confirmed cases (when on March 12 we "only" had 28 in LA County). I found out yesterday that my city (South Pasadena) now has a 2nd case, and my hometown (Cerritos), also in LA County, is reporting its 1st case. As more testing becomes available, the numbers will continue to go up, unless they start to flatten which I hope becomes the case soon. |
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We'll probably get close to 900 today and cross the 1,000 threshold tomorrow. As for the thread topic, we've been social distancing in our city neighborhood for a week now. Other than a bigger back yard for the kids to have their own swing set/jungle gym (city playgrounds are now off limits), I don't see how our new reality would be terribly different out in the burbs. |
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Cases/Tests Total 3/16 93/1025 3/17. 160/1500 3/18. 289/2052 3/19. 426/3151 3/20. 590/4286 3/21. 759/6247 Daily Cases/Tests=%+ 3/16. 29/317=9.1% 3/17. 67/475=14.1% 3/18. 129/552=23.4% 3/19. 137/1099=12.5% 3/20. 164/1135=14.4% 3/21. 169/1961=8.6% City of Chicago Cases 3/16. 49 3/17 63 3/18. 104 3/19. 151 3/20. 212 3.21. 345 Illinois numbers are a proxy for Chicagoland since the rest of the state isn't logging comparable numbers. The blessing for Illinois and Chicago is that every single time the testing doubles, the positive hit rate falls in half. Unlike in New York, where the percent that test positive is increasing even as testing ramps up. Unfortunately, California doesn't seem to be doing a lot of testing per capita. 1497+ out of 12,747. Also, I've heard that Indiana hospitals are borrowing some of Illinois' tests since Indiana is lagging. |
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If anything, once a vaccine is created for COVID-19, I'm thinking the topic of this thread becomes moot. |
I don't think there's much correlation between urbanism and this virus. South Korea is obviously more dense and transit oriented than anywhere in the US, yet they have this under control and are a global model example.
Suburbs have obviously not been immune to this pandemic so I don't see people drawing the conclusion that they should choose to live in sprawl because viruses might get them. Especially not people who have a desire for urban living. |
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Our local media here in Los Angeles has been listing the number of total/new cases by county. |
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Chicago city proper having about as many cases as LA county NYC by far having way way way more cases than anywhere else, even factoring in population. And comparing the US to S Korea is an apples to oranges comparison. I’m talking about US cities with our lack of testing, variable enforcement of sheltering State by State, and otherwise more lax response compared to our Asian counterparts. A better comparison would be the per capita case rate in Seoul, for example, versus rural S Korea |
IDK about rebirth, but maybe more like repair. The impact on small businesses IMO is concerning the longer this drags on. I'm not talking about the F500 chains, but the mom and pop stores, the ones that often greatly aid the urban fabric of neighborhoods (X, Y, Z...).
With online shopping being the way it is, some cities have been losing some character with respect to the retail/store aspect of it. Something like this poses a threat to the business owners. The Bobs and Mary's of smaller establishments. Often the creative niche stores that make a neighborhood unique and give folks a reason to walk on "X" street as opposed to parking lot strip malls and big box stores that do nothing but dull the urban form. But... on the other end, possibly there might be a rebirth. Possibly.... This event might lead to changes on many frontiers. American life may be shaped differently, with a different outlook and discourse. Key words "might" or "possibly", but nothing in certain. Day-by-day folks, we shall see. The future is the ultimate suspense with a value of 1. |
People aren't going to abandon higher density cities for the suburbs just because of this. This is a short term 'inconvenience' mitigated by Door Dash and a run in the park. If this was a straight up zombie apocalypse with no chance of survival in large numbers or cure, then yeah, head to your nearest cul-de-sac.
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Japan, Canada, India, and most other countries outside Europe, Iran, and China have lower rates than the US.
There's probably a substantial relationship to transit, Uber, and tightly-packed restaurants making it worse...anything with a lot of new people cycling through. But the suburban Applebees isn't much different despite maybe a little added space, and hygiene might be a bigger factor overall. It's important to think of health more broadly anyway. If someone can walk to more things, they'll tend to be healthier on average. In the long run, the virus is a blip compared to that. |
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Coronavirus started spreading in Illinois about a week after New York, and Illinois began doing school/bar/test shutdowns earlier. But the case numbers were similar up until that point. |
It won't; this isn't going to be around forever, nor will this become anymore common of an event than it has been. And when the dust settles, all the desirable things about cities will still exist.
Just copy & pasting a response I made to a similar post in another thread: Quote:
To add to that, in the global context there doesn't seem to much of a correlation between high density cities and spread of the virus. The places & societies that have it the worst tend to have a lot more specifically "human closeness" (multi-generational households, physical affection, socializing) rather than just living near more people (you're not any more likely to get it just because you live in an apartment...); as well as things like aging populations, air pollution, and smoking, which contribute to respiratory problems. And perhaps most importantly - slow and/or ineffective government responses. |
On a side note, there is probally a positive to the sprawled out nature of the U.S.. Just hear me out.
Compared to a lot of other nations, our population distribution tends to be very spread out. We have peaks and troughs of density fluctuations along our very large metros. Compared to some other places, with a much higher urban population AND the U.S.'s distribution of key industries away from major urban centers (in some cases, smaller tows), our national security from the sense of the key weapons of mass destruction categories which are nuclear, chemical, and biological... we may fair better than some places like Italy or Spain for example (pick country with very high urban population but limited urban or geographical sprawl). Our sprawled out nature could be an advantage. Has its shares of disadvantages as well, but also some positives. It would take a lot of nukes for example to render our nation crippled, whereas some nation states, 2 or 3 will do the job due to "X" nation having a much higher percentage of folks in 2 or 3 metros. Our land size, and sprawl IMO is an advantage in that respect. Just replicate it in the sense of chemical/biological. We can hide and shelter over a much larger sq-mile distribution AND this would require a much higher of magnitude of delivery and potency of categories 1, 2 and 3. |
Suburban grocery stores aren't usually any less crowded, in my experience. (In fact, they're often worse because everyone has a shopping cart...).
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In strategic shift, doctors in America's two largest cities LA and New York not testing ... - CNN.com https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/..._78c4316624641 Coronavirus test sites grow in LA County, but you must be sick ... https://www.dailynews.com/2020/03/19...-to-be-tested/ s the number of California coronavirus cases reached 1,500, state officials ... total of 1,500 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, is a gross ... And Los Angeles city officials scrambled to open five more ... Coronavirus - Los Angeles Times www.latimes.com › california-coronavirus-cases-deaths-rise-newsom Hopefully the rest of the Country isn't following LA when it comes to testing. |
American cities will be fine. It’s the low-density suburbs that are fully built-out and frozen in time that are going to slowly decline. It doesn’t matter if quarantine is easier to achieve in these environments - from a financial standpoint, they are fundamentally unviable in the long term.
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Lots of compelling arguments as to why (inner) cities should be OK.
Though I think the OP's point is more related to perceptions that people have of cities and how they might change. Millions of Americans have recently become more willing to give inner cities a look as a potential place to live. This crisis could potentially give most of them the perception that they're unsafe and undesirable. (Which isn't that far off from the view of big cities that existed in much of the 20th century.) Whether this is the reality doesn't really matter. |
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You can keep denying the obvious or we can now move on to the rest of my discussion, which is asking whether the shock and trauma from dealing with this pandemic will motivate people to change their living patterns in the future. |
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