How would you compare US cities' recovery from COVID vs. Great Recession?

[chris08876]

NYC looks to be back for the holidays. This is at 1147 pm.... 1147 pm!

Profound crowding. The quality sort of doesn't capture the full picture.

[Crawford]

Midtown is a madhouse right now. This holiday season feels even busier than pre-pandemic. Packed streets. Transit is the only way in or out.

[iheartthed]

^That looks like a run of the mill Saturday evening in Midtown to me...

[ChiSoxRox]

Anecdotal, but I am in San Francisco for a conference, and Union Square has been standing room only this weekend with holiday concerts. Hopefully San Francisco is back on the upswing.

[Steely Dan]

FWIW, I read recently that Michigan avenue in Chicago recently recorded its highest sales volume day ever!

Not just a post-pandemic record, but a record for all of time.



Clearly, our big cities are all dying.

[mrnyc]

well thats bideninflation for ya.

[chris08876]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

FWIW, I read recently that Michigan avenue in Chicago recently recorded its highest sales volume day ever!

Not just a post-pandemic record, but a record for all of time.



Clearly, our big cities are all dying.

I think they all will be back to normal if not already and if not exceeding pre-pandemic.

Suburbs and 15 minute cities can only be so much joy... eventually people will get bored of them and being stuck in the house due to remote work and crippling depression and will be back to the hustle and bustle. There is a unique charm to the crazy person yelling at 642 am on a Monday morning in the subway... a unique charm! And people miss that, people miss that!

Glad Michigan Ave is doing well. Now we just need most of our cities to all boom at the same time. Record crane activity and construction!

And Santas. Good old Santacon. Great for the holidays. Santa's in every city. Drunk and remorseful and angry Santa's!

[homebucket]

Things seem to have stabilized a bit despite all the recent tech layoffs. Job wise, appears to be at pre-pandemic levels.

Bay Area starts 2024 with robust job gains led by South Bay upswing
But California, Bay Area job markets were not as strong as first thought
By GEORGE AVALOS | gavalos@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: March 8, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. | UPDATED: March 8, 2024 at 5:32 p.m.

The Bay Area and California experienced sturdy employment gains in January to kick off 2024 — but new data released Friday shows the job market in the nine-county region and statewide was not nearly as strong in 2023 as originally thought.

Employers in the Bay Area added 13,600 jobs in January, propelled by big employment gains in the South Bay, according to seasonally adjusted numbers published by the state’s labor agency.

...

“The best way to understand what’s happening is that we’re downsizing in some areas and growing in others, and there’s enough growth to offset the losses,” Hancock said.

https://www.siliconvalley.com/2024/0...l-store-build/

[Velvet_Highground]

I did a quick bit of research looking at Metro Detroit CSA per capita GDP growth and 2019-2020 saw a rise of 7.6%, 2020-2021 saw a rise of 6.4%. You have to go back to the late 90’s to find comparable rates. 97-98 when growth was 6.6% & 99-00 which was at 7.2%.

I’m not seeing the data past 2021-2022 at BEA.gov but the first lockdown saw 1.6% growth. There’s has been some momentum building again in Detroit & the Metro attracting high tech manufacturing and the residential market is arguably best in the country in terms of home appreciation which is a huge boost. But looking at the kind of projects that were on the board before Covid even excluding office were not there yet. While that’s not a great measure the lack of recovery nationally in retail and the rise of work at home hit the region right as it was really starting to put out great projects that filled some key missing spaces.

We’ll have to see how things go this year but there were a lot of very ambitious plans that were moving the region towards not only making up for the Great Recession and Covid but the sluggish growth of the early to mid 00’s & the early onset of the recession. The projects I’m seeing while more conservative seem to have really sound fundamentals so fingers crossed if all goes well things could be pick up where we left off (in a manner of speaking).