1. In the past 25 years there has been a huge re-migration back to cores of major cities. I think that is going to stop.
2. Suburbs and exurbs I think will become way more popular. The normal limiting factor on those locations is the commute, but I think so many more companies will be used to remote work after this (even if they don't necessarily prefer it) that you'll see a lot more "come into the office once or twice a week" type things that make living in the exurbs a lot more bearable.
3. I don't foresee migration away from the major metros. People will still go where the jobs are, and if anything I see the pandemic making strong companies stronger and smaller, weaker companies weaker. Definitely would not be willing to put a lot of money down on this 3rd point, though, could see a trend toward 2nd/3rd tier cities.
#2: Suburbs/exurbs are completely unsustainable. I'd predict that after this is over, local food sources will figure prominently on people's minds. We might see a return to smaller satellite cities if zoning changes to a saner mixed zoning approach. (You don't want big box stores. You do want smaller stores embedded in the local community. I'm not sure there's the political will to go there, because small stores can't afford making lots of campaign donations)
#3 depends highly on how long we'll be distancing. At some point, habits will be formed, and cities will be less appealing. Combine that with likely increased WFH, and way too high rent in cities, and migration might be tempting. I'd hope the satellite cities are smart enough to densify accordingly (because urban sprawl is unsustainable, but again, many interests aligned against that).
Independent point #4 - the importance of communities you're actually part of is currently driven home. I think the desire to be close to family/friends/social groups might increase. (There's the counter argument of our new habits of video socializing, but it's fundamentally less appealing than knowing people who have your back are living close to you)
A lot of these patterns hinges ultimately on how willing companies will be to continue WFH. There's also the interesting question what happens with lots of useless office space if we do move to large-scale WFH on a persistent basis.
In general, I'd expect lots of higher-order effects ricocheting through society for a long time to come :)
Rental cost merely reflect the supply and demand. A significant drop in demand should put pressure on rental costs. However, I'm skeptic that such a drop will come from "the desire to be close to family/friends/social groups". People moved against that before and I don't see that changing. I also don't see any time soon people getting less interested in the opportunity that comes with city life.
A lot will depend on how much and how rapidly lockdown can be eased. If we spend 18-24 months without many of the benefits/opportunities of city life, or at least with those opportunities significantly diminished, culture will rapidly shift to different models - and those are likely more location independent.
And yes, of course rent is a supply/demand question, but the current experience is "the rent is too damn high", and that puts a certain amount of pressure on city living. Take away enough upsides, and it's not worth it any more.
Rent might drop as a result, but it will be a lagging indicator of cities becoming unpopular.
At the same time, closeness to social groups is being valued higher, because we're currently learning that a lonely/isolated life is not a good life. And, like any traumatic event, we're also learning that a supportive community matters, a lot.
You seem to assume that current forces and values hold, despite a global traumatic event. I think that we're in for a complete change of the landscape. The future will tell.
I've heard rumblings from a lot of people about moving out, mostly from people who haven't really set down roots here - which makes sense. The appeal of New York is largely all the stuff to do, and without being able to do stuff you're just stuck in a very small space that you pay a lot of money for.
Most of the people I hear this from expect social-distancing type measures to continue for quite some time, so especially those with small children/etc. are really thinking about whether they can do this for another year.
Interestingly I haven't really met anyone considering leaving the city because of the virus itself (i.e. because of concern due to population density), only those really feeling the lifestyle restrictions. They're responsible and social distancing, etc. so the thought of continuing that lifestyle without significantly more living space is getting to them.
Are you really even meeting people at all though considering pretty much everyone in NYC is home in isolation.
Strange distinction to make, isn't it?
A lot of the discussion revolves around mortality rates, and in particular about NYC as the US epicenter.
Most people I talk to who are thinking about leaving the city aren't concerned about their own risk as a result of being in a dense urban center, rather the lifestyle adjustments are the most difficult thing for them.
Granted that's almost entirely because most people I talk to are relatively healthy young adults who are being responsible and avoiding contact as much as possible, so they're not concerned as much about their own mortality or being a possible vector for others.
It's probably too early to tell if this is a lasting trend.
One, talk is cheap.
Two, what happened in NYC was not destined to be, and it's an easy lie leaders and those who look down on New Yorkers love to spread. Lots of big dense cities have handled this crisis well, just like some rural areas have not. Epidemics have been devastating throughout human history.
Three, to the people who live here and see this as inevitable and would rather flee than work together and fix the issue and protect our communities - good riddance.
Editing to add Seattle has world-class rock climbing, mountaineering, and hiking under an hour's drive from downtown, and if you aren't doing that you're probably missing out on half the joy of living here.
I feel like thats a minority opinion. The weather is terrible, the food is terrible, service at restaurants (or pretty much service in general) is terrible. A huge portion of the city shuts down at night. Where NYC is a city that doesn't sleep, Seattle sleeps. There are drug needles in the streets, and I routinely see homeless people defecating on sidewalks. I even saw a bus stop turned into a homeless person's 'house'.
The only thing I see that Seattle has going for it is low taxes.
* I moved here from Canada, the weather really isn't that bad; it's been a beautiful spring here while all my Canadian friends are still dealing with snow
* Seattle has a huge number of sakura and so the city has beautiful pink cherry blossom clouds everywhere for the entire month of April
* The entire environment is so incredibly lush & green; it's called the Emerald City for a reason!
* The food is quite good, actually
It's funny that the thing you think Seattle has going for it - low taxes - directly contributes to the issue of homelessness and half of your complaints.
The Seattle City Council is tirelessly working to fix that.
Are there any other US cities that don't sleep?
I miss legal weed, but I sure don't miss much of anything else in Seattle.
For a smaller place (900sqft for a 2 or 3 bedroom) they're asking $3200 in logan square.
Right arround the corner (western/armitage) they're asking $1800 for a studio.
My apartment is $850 and that gets me 2 bedrooms, 1200sqft. In a definitely not as large city mind you, but $1500 is insanely expensive for one bedroom.
Seems like you could have all of that without living in downtown...
But you gain: * cheap land * neighbors with skills beyond typing * cheaper labor pool for assistance you might need (electrician, plumber, private pilot training, etc, etc)
Sort this table by per-capita total deaths: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
And that's just by state. NYC proper is likely even worse than that would suggest.
NYC confirmed deaths related to Covid-19: 7,890 and counting.[1]
9/11 death toll: 2,996.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-citys-coronavirus-deat...
New York is denser than any city in California.
"New York is far more crowded than any other major city in the United States. It has 28,000 residents per square mile, while San Francisco, the next most jammed city, has 17,000, according to data from the U.S. Census Bur"
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/nyregion/coronavirus-nyc-...
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2020/04/07...
And a sibling thread mentioned the subway; it doesn't go to Staten Island.
Risk is not additive. The median age for covid deaths is well into the late 70s, which means that there is a high risk of death in the same period anyway would the person not have been infected with covid.
The overall mortality numbers will be up, but throwing that stat out there is hugely misleading.
If I'm struck by a car with stage 4 cancer, the car accident killed me, regardless of my outlook. If that car accident happens to be highly contagious, well then the cause is even more important.
> Risk is not additive.
It isn't always, but it very often is and it is in this case.
this is not obviously true. the analogy is good, but you didn't go into enough detail.
if someone with terminal cancer is hit by a car, makes it to a hospital, and dies some weeks later, why did they die? both things likely played a role; how do you report this statistic?
i stopped worrying about the virus and started worrying about the economy and its politics weeks ago.
This is an awful example though because the victim profile of car deaths is generally middle aged adults, who would not have died otherwise. If your average car driver was a stage four cancer patient traffic safety would indeed be less of an issue relatively speaking.
The risk profile of covid patients skews so heavily towards old age and existing preconditions that it is actually not trivial at all. It's immensely important to look at death rates in the context of general mortality, not a vacuum.
It may very well be the case that covid 'crams' the deaths of people who would have died anyway into a short timeframe and there'll be singificantly lower flu mortality and so on later this year.
Look up population
Derive percentage
https://www.google.com/search?q=nyc+population says 8.4M
https://www.google.com/search?q=corona+death+toll+nyc says 10k
https://nypost.com/2020/04/18/nyc-coronavirus-deaths-near-13... says 13k
This gives 0.1%. The OP's numbers are based on 6M population & 15k deaths. I believe their trying to cite total deaths, not just covid-19 related. Their NYC region also seems to be more localized
This is less than the original parent states, but only by 2x.
[0] https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=coronav...
[1] https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=nyc+pop...
[2] Elementary math?
Overall mortality, compared to the baseline, has skyrocketed in the past few weeks. For the March 4 - April 4 time period, it was double the usual rate. [2]
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/corona...
Johns Hopkins shows 14,451 deaths as of now: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...
NYC always has a transient crowd and a permanent crowd. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of the people who would have moved to the burbs within 1-5 years are accelerating that timeline. For us permanent residents we can't imagine living anywhere else. All of this was said after 9/11. I don't find that my rent today is lower than it was in 2002.
Let me also add that people today are fleeing dense areas under the belief that they can escape Coronavirus. Newsflash - everyone is probably going to get this. Flatten the curve was never about escaping the virus altogether - it is about smoothing out the burden on the healthcare system.
What makes you say this? Looks like it's pretty much only "New-Yorkers" commenting on this submission...
Searches are up 250%. Percent of what? 1000 searches? 1 million searches? I understand that this post is content marketing for the company, but I haven't heard of it before, so I don't know if they can simply toss out a YOY % and claim that it's a trend. Reading the article, it's also not clear that the queries were coming from users based in NYC.
I think looking at something like Google Trends might be more representative of interest, as you can filter the data by State, try different search terms and see the % change by day, week, year or 5 years.
[1] https://nypost.com/2019/12/30/new-york-is-losing-residents-a...
Choose two.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States
[2] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/obesity.p...
Doesn’t hurt to test proverbs. I personally wouldn’t bet against it.
My hope for this experience was that people would realize how productive WFH is and this would be great because it would normalize it and everyone would realize how well it works and... my perception of the reaction to it is unfortunately that most people at the company are wildly negative about it right now. Across the board. So much so that it's kind of shocked me. I had to stop talking about how much I liked it because it was upsetting people.
I wish people wouldn't judge the productivity of WFH from doing so under a duress during a pandemic but I'm actually really worried this whole experience is pushing people to be more convinced that WFH is unproductive than they were before the pandemic :(
