The post-Covid city

Abstract

The Covid pandemic has had a significant and immediate impact upon cities, and there has been a large body of literature dedicated to understanding the nature of these short-term changes. However, and arguably even more importantly, scholars are charged with trying to grasp the consequences for the city in the coming years as the pandemic is gradually and unevenly brought under control. In September 2021 the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society held a conference that examined the impacts of the Covid Pandemic on cities and whether—and in what ways—cities will reconfigure economically, socially and spatially as countries emerge and rebuild from the pandemic. From this conference, a number of key research questions emerged that were examined in detail in the articles and commentaries that were selected from this conference for publication in this Special Issue. The key questions were: What are the key lessons on how cities should design and implement their vaccination programmes and other support to help their most vulnerable citizens, who are often concentrated in deprived neighbourhoods? Will remote/flexible working become a permanent feature of the city landscape and what are the implications for commuting and patterns of city land-use? More people working from home has meant less demand in cities for a whole range of services, from coffee houses and restaurants, to high quality shopping malls. Significant reduction of footfall in city centres has been recorded (Hunter et al., 2021; Koster et al., 2022). The associated impact on the jobs and incomes of some of the lowest paid in society has been profound. A major question is thus whether these effects are transitory, or whether longer-term, more systemic changes are occurring. Has the pandemic led to a flight to the suburbs by city residents? Talen (2020) suggests that towns around cities may have been invigorated during lockdowns, as cities have emptied and ‘social’ (physical) distancing has meant workers may prefer to live in settlements with lower densities, opting to avoid going back to everything ‘big’. Other scholars, such as Couclelis (2020), Florida, Rodríguez-Pose and Storper (2020) and Kleinman (2020), have predicted the status quo will reassert itself relatively quickly. How will increased working from home affect the advantages to businesses of city locations and the traditional benefits associated with agglomeration? Some argue that in a post-Covid world, the role of cities -and particularly their city-centres—may undergo considerable change, with significant impacts on the type of businesses located there, and thus the people who work in them (See The Guardian, March 2020; JLL, 2020; Li and Wan, 2022; and Schroders, 2020; Li et al., 2022). The pandemic has provided a unique natural experiment to assess just how robust many of the traditional benefits to businesses and residents from city locations are. How has the acceleration in the use of new technologies and the use of big data heralded in a new phase of Smart Cities? Before the Pandemic, much of the ‘Smart City’ literature focused on cities as sites of commercial, ‘entrepreneurial’ activity, acting as ‘receptacles of technology’, or, as ‘wired cities’, where citizens are included in access to digital technologies (Glasmeier and Christopherson, 2015). The pandemic has meant technologies are increasingly used by governments around the world to surveil their populations and hopefully provide better protection to them from future Pandemics. However, there are a number of ethical and legal issues concerning the use of ‘big data’ in surveillance to track people with Covid-19, including potential bias in the various algorithms used to extract personal data and make automated decisions (Wong and Hinnant, 2021). New, disruptive technologies, including blockchain and digital twins, are also being used to enhance the environment and governance of cities, by facilitating citizens’ access to local public services such as bike use and local food delivery, in what appear to be positive developments for city inhabitants (Clifton and Pal, 2022). Responses to Covid-19 have affected in some way or other all of these things and there are many issues posed for the workings of urban land, labour and property markets and, importantly, the priorities for transport and planning policies, particularly in relation to public transport and micro-mobility services. This Introductory Editorial discusses each of the questions highlighting how the articles and commentaries in this Special Issue have helped to address them. The first reported case of Covid-19 was in Wuhan, China on the 17 November 2019 but new evidence suggests that the first cases were a month or so earlier (Roberts et al., 2021). On the 15 August 2022 the World Health Organisation confirmed that there have been some 587.4 million reported cases of Covid-19, with 6.4 million deaths. A total of 12.4 billion vaccine doses have been administered. The overall number of cases and deaths is undoubtedly higher, but the numbers serve to illustrate the terrible impact that the pandemic has had on the people of the world. Figure 1, taken from one of the most authoritative sources that has tracked the progression of the virus, shows how its incidence progressed with the peak in early 2022. As might be expected given its highly contagious nature, most cases have occurred in the world’s largest cities. The virus has affected the more deprived and vulnerable in cities particularly severely. Speaking on the 28 July 2020 António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations Urban said: World Daily New Confirmed COVID 19 Cases and Deaths per Million People. 7-day average. Limited testing and challenges in the attribution of deaths mean cases and deaths counts may not be accurate. Source: Hannah Ritchie, Edouard Mathieu, Lucas Rodés-Guirao, Cameron Appel, Charlie Giattino, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, Joe Hasell, Bobbie Macdonald, Diana Beltekian and Max Roser (2020) – ‘Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19)’. Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: ‘https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus’. ‘Urban areas are ground zero of the Covid-19 pandemic, with 90 per cent of reported cases. Cities are bearing the brunt of the crisis, many with strained health systems, inadequate water and sanitation services, and other challenges. This is especially the case in poorer areas, where the pandemic has exposed deeply rooted inequalities’. One of the most important lessons in dealing with air-borne infections is not to forget the lessons that many had hoped had already been learned from the pioneers of public health research over a century and a half ago. In the case of London, for example, it was the pioneering work of Edwin Chadwick1 who, in 1842, observed that those most affected in that city were those on the lowest incomes, relatively deprived, who lived in the most cramped living spaces and were poorly served by public and private service providers. If this was to change, governments had to not only improve and target the provision of health care to these groups but also address the inadequate housing and physical conditions in which they lived. As Isaac Bogoch (2022) writing in this Special Edition highlights, the vaccine roll out across the world has been relatively uneven when it comes to helping those most in need. Furthermore, the public health issues are not just those associated with physical illness. The pandemic has caused untold mental health problems, which are again likely to be highly uneven by socio-economic category and place. It is urgent to get to grips with ways to improve the health of our cities and our citizens across many levels. Though social media reduced isolation by allowing virtual contact between friends and family, even allowing doctor's appointments to continue during the pandemic, at the same time, it put into question our mental health, as regards the potentially more harmful ways we are engaging with social media, and the segregation of different community groups. As Wang et al. (2022) in this Special Edition highlight “we need to use ‘social media and machine learning techniques to systematically classify and measure the urban-regional disparity of mental health signals of a nation.’” There are many issues that need to be considered in managing the spread of highly contagious viruses in cities. However, obtaining better health and vaccination responses are essential, in particular, given the mental health problems associated with imposing highly restrictive containment measures on the population. Alongside the effect of the virus on the health of people in cities there has also been a significant impact as a result of the measures that governments around the world have taken to control and contain it, most notably by requiring residents to remain at or work from home, restricting gatherings for entertainment or social purposes. Many of these restrictions have been accompanied by social distancing and the wearing of protective masks. During the containment phase of the pandemic there were dramatic reductions in the volume of urban mobility. Lozzi et al. (2020) refer to the lowest point being reached in April 2020 when, according to Google mobility data, public transportation, traffic and walking were reduced by 76%, 65% and 67% of their pre-Covid volumes respectively in the relatively high-income countries. In big city centres such as London which, in normal times, contain more than one million workers, these reductions were even greater which at their lowest point in 2021 were over 90% below their pre-Covid level. Albalate et al. (2022) in this Special Edition discuss some of the consequences of these reductions. They also highlight that reduced mobility has been particularly challenging for those on lower incomes in the most deprived neighbourhoods in cities with reduced employment opportunities in the hospitality, leisure and retailing sectors. Levels of urban mobility have been relatively slow to recover, remaining at between 40% and 70% of their pre-Covid volume at the present time, despite the lift of all travel restrictions. Underground/metro systems have been particularly adversely affected, as such systems usually only operate with public subsidies and the pandemic has dramatically changed their economic financing. One of the effects of the pandemic on travel behaviour has been to bring about some degree of model shift, notably from public transport to private car and use of bikes. It is an open question the extent to which these changes will persist in the post-Covid city. Whilst the latter can be considered to be a benefit to the urban environment, greater car usage is more problematic, particularly in cities that were experiencing severe levels of congestion before the pandemic. Li and Xu (2022), in this Special Edition, observe that increased bike-sharing during the Pandemic was a particularly significant feature of behaviour in Wuhan, the centre of the original outbreak. They argue for more emphasis to be given to the promotion of shared mobility in a post-Covid world as part of a strategy to build urban resilience to future pandemics. Of great interest is whether the changes in patterns of mobility in cities observed during the pandemic will result in longer-term changes in economic and residential activity across cities and between cities, their suburbs and wider hinterlands (Florida et al., 2020). Brail and Kleinman (2022) in this Special Edition question whether the fundamentals that have enabled the growth of second tier cities have been significantly altered by the pandemic and consider the implications for urban form. They focus on the two key, inter-related, areas of work: mobility and housing, using Toronto as a case study. These authors suggest that changes in mobility patterns during the pandemic have had ‘at least two possible, divergent impacts on urban form: a) the increasing desirability of compact and walkable mixed-use urban neighbourhoods; and b) the possibility of more distant suburban living in which remote work enables a permanent reduction in and 2022). 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(2022) in this Special Edition the has been by of and workers have been particularly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. These authors focus on the impact of Covid-19 on and workers in the city of The they as a result of Covid and led to a public and a of how and affected their given the of their working environment and the of the impact of Covid-19 on and has led to the of a more and a for better The authors that Covid-19 has that cities a significant they to address a more and employment environment for their A of interest is to more about how on personal during the pandemic may have the workings of urban and (2022) in this Special Edition research this and with to the pandemic and during the from the pandemic. of in the of and in the cities of New London, and on the of their significant and resilience across the with the large positive and for the future of in their city. 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(2022) in this Special Edition when the social and impacts of Covid 19 and the incidence on and it is to and an and city cities benefits in being to to each of the of a pandemic. The has to be to more and responses across cities that and but the economic consequences of the itself and the used to contain and The and in a way that dealing with have only There challenges particularly in relation to and that much more research and public than has been the case around the world (See (2022) in this Special New data have emerged as a result of the pandemic particularly those to travel and mobility. These are with a unique into the of that as populations as they social and as they to in from These data need to be with more and economic data so that a of the city As Brail and Kleinman (2022) discuss has exposed in data by public in of and The Toronto case the need for to have access to a range of data from a of including private In understanding the impacts and we have used as as traditional data and The of data as of a potentially permanent normal the impacts of a such as in the case of the of working with and often data sources present with opportunities to the impacts of immediate and longer-term including the implications for the role of and in the role of and in of the for the future of The world’s cities have to be to the pandemic the Pandemic of but the in of and has been The major to has been the to and on a as Isaac Bogoch work to that the most vulnerable in society who live in the relatively neighbourhoods vaccination As et al. (2022) highlight Covid-19 incidence has been to be in with socio-economic conditions in such as in the in in and in There are also lessons from Covid-19 on how to avoid the strategy Li et al. (2022) in this Special Edition how a strategy may and a case of Wuhan, The on to the has important implications for the economic a for cities. The uneven and effect of across and locations are likely to in other cities and countries with a governance Many of those who have to this Special Issue have that the economic of cities is to be again and the economic fundamentals that have their remain However, it is to how governments will be to control even more problematic, pandemics. from home is likely to be an feature of the urban landscape but cities will remain for and the of many economic and the people who work in particularly the these advantages remain of great for them and society as a as to what the impact of the pandemic will be on patterns of use in cities. In the countries of the the pandemic has given to those city workers who to their in the city and live in less more and more locations in the to this has been by their in the and them being to work from the present time, the impact of the changes in behaviour on the demand for is to In major cities there is a of with a for quality by who less with in and the However, the most dramatic changes to traditional use in cities are in the retailing in the traditional and large shopping centre developments where the pandemic has as a result of to shopping A considerable of will not new If economic and urban are to be it is that have the and to new and public transport How the post-Covid city in the years has important consequences for the environment, mental and public health and economic it is expected to be a for research scholars to new evidence to traditional and for use to build better public

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