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How cities can drive opportunity for the bulk of their citizens

Working-Class People Hold Society Together: Class and COVID-19

April 15, 2020

by Sarah Attfield — Working-class people are more likely to suffer as a result of both the coronavirus and the measures put in place to contain its spread.

Illustration of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19

The Coronavirus is Changing the Future of Home, Work, and Life

April 14, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic will be shaping how we live, work and learn about the world long after the last lockdown ends and toilet paper hoarding is done, accelerating shifts that were already underway including the dispersion of population out of the nation’s densest urban areas and the long-standing trend away from mass transit and office concentration towards flatter and often home-based employment.

COVID-19: A Call to Connect

April 12, 2020

by Charlie Stephens — With COVID-19 we are going through something practically no living soul has ever experienced. It may be forging new realities, and could place us at the edge of a big change —politically, economically, culturally, and spiritually. What this will look like nobody really knows...

View of NYC midtown and Queens, a densely populated area

Early Observations on the Pandemic and Population Density

April 10, 2020

by Wendell Cox — It is still too early to draw precise conclusions on the extent to which the spread of the COVID-19 is related to urban population density. But there are important recurring themes.

Corner of Canal and Baxter Streets in NYC

After Coronavirus We Need to Rethink Densely Populated Cities

April 9, 2020

by Joel Kotkin — For the better part of this millennium, the nation’s urban planning punditry has predicted that the future lay with its densest, largest, and most cosmopolitan cities.

Coronavirus and Cities

April 7, 2020

by Schlomo Angel — We have drafted a working paper, titled "The Coronavirus and the Cities: Explaining Variations in U.S. Metropolitan Areas as of 27 March 2020". We plan to revise the paper regularly as new data comes in.

Elderly couple in small town, rural America

Coronavirus, Labor and an Aging World

April 7, 2020

by Ali Modarres — In the last few months, we have gradually realized the dire nature of this global pandemic, and our response has been? Nothing short of the creation of a new world: hopefully not on the ruins of the last. The novel coronavirus is showing us the downside of accelerated mobility, excessive attention to short-term gains, and structural inequities.

The Future of Office Space Real Estate Market

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April 6, 2020

by Marshall Toplansky — Recently, I interviewed 12 CEO’s in California about what aspects of business they expected to change after the coronavirus epidemic passsed. They first cited a coming upheaval in the office space real estate market.

The Coming Age of Dispersion

March 26, 2020

by Joel Kotkin — As of this writing, the long-term effects of the coronavirus pandemic remain uncertain. One possible consequence is the end of the megacity era. In its place, we may now witness a new, and necessary, dispersion of population...

Coronavirus and the Future of Living and Working in America

March 24, 2020

by Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky — By late spring, the most severe impacts from coronavirus may fade, but its impact on the rise of dispersed living and working arrangements — were already emerging even before the pandemic emerged.

Studying the Wrong Cities Will Lead to Repeating Their Mistakes

March 4, 2020

by Ross Elliott — The junket factor must be the only logical criteria by which various industry “study tours” overseas are planned. How else to explain how entirely inappropriate the choices are? The list of cities identified for “study” by Australian development and planning industry bodies reads like the pages of a glossy weekend travel magazine

Working class protestors in Paris, France

The Two Middle Classes

March 2, 2020

by Joel Kotkin — Politicians across the Western world like to speak fondly of the “middle class” as if it is one large constituency with common interests and aspirations. But, as Karl Marx observed, the middle class has always been divided by sources of wealth and worldview. Today, it is split into two distinct, and often opposing, middle classes.

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