Do We Know Any More About the Future of Cities Than We Did in April 2020?

The conversation about how the pandemic might alter the direction of planning and urbanism, unlike the spread of the coronavirus, has remained steady since March.

6 minute read

October 12, 2020, 6:00 AM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell

Trump supporters gather in Coral Springs, Florida on October 4, 2020. | YES Market Media / Shutterstock

[Updated October 14, 2020] The coronavirus has been running rampant now for long enough for speculation to benefit from information, as the final group of articles listed in the below compendium attests. The disruption of the first days of the pandemic have given away to patterns, and these patterns are now lingering, rather than emerging. Unemployment is still at record lows. An eviction crisis looms, with the day of reckoning a constant source of anxiety and political negotiation; transit ridership cratered at the beginning of the pandemic, making a small, incremental recovery since then; and vehicle miles traveled by automobile are still well below pre-pandemic levels. Americans have been generally staying home for months, now with an extra layer of environmental threat represented by wildfire and hurricane season, and are increasingly turning to parks and active transportation for escape from the doldrums of the pandemic lifestyle.

Individuals who have flouted the public health guidance of experts and scientists have paid a price (yes, I'm talking about the Trump administration, among others), and parts of the country that thought that they were immune are now seeing the highest rates of infection per capita (a fact that has worsened as the most recent weeks have passed). Increasing infections didn't stop a resident from attempting to make a citizen arrest of the entire Board of Supervisors in Shasta County, California. The FBI uncovered a plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan. The country has been living with this heavy blanket of anxiety and anger for months now, but every day seems to reveal some novel form of risk and conflict, even as patterns of mobility and the real estate market have settled.

Meanwhile, infection rates for the entire country are creeping up again. Infection rates in my home county of Los Angeles are creeping up again. Infection rates in the Northeast, where Americans lived through the worst of the pandemic six months ago, are creeping up again. Way too many people are sick, and everyone is tired.

Planetizen has been documenting the ongoing debate about the future of urbanism, planning, transportation, etc., throughout the pandemic, so far sharing five previous compendiums of articles on the subject, with many more examples mixed in over the course of the year.

The Media Can't Stop Talking About the End of Cities (August 2020)
The Great Debate: Will the Pandemic Alter the Course of Urbanism? (July 2020)
Debating the Future of Cities After the Coronavirus, Volume 3 (June 2020)
Density Debate Rages Alongside the Pandemic (April 2020)
Debating the Future of Cities, and Urban Density, After the Pandemic (March 2020)
Coronavirus and Urbanism (Planetizen Tag)
Coronavirus and Transportation (Planetizen Tag)
Coronavirus and Density (Planetizen Tag)

I didn't do any official count to compare, but my impression is that now many in the field of planning and its allied professions have begun to make sense of the realities of the pandemic, and are ready to have an informed discussion about the world that will be created when the pandemic is finally defeated. That doesn't mean that the wild speculation about the potential demise of cities has ended. I'm sure we'll be having that conversation for long after the coronavirus meets its match.

Community / Economic Development Environment Housing Infrastructure Land Use Transportation Urban Development Coronavirus and Urbanism Coronavirus COVID 19 Planning Urban Exodus View More

James Brasuell

James Brasuell, AICP is the former editorial director of Planetizen and is now a senior public affairs specialist at the Southern California Association of Governments. James managed all editorial content and direction for Planetizen from 2014 to 2023, and was promoted from manging editor to editorial director in 2021. After a first career as a class five white water river guide in Trinity County in Northern California, James started his career in Los Angeles as a volunteer at a risk reduction center in Skid Row.

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