Here and There
As we noted in our Intro to Network Communities, we’ve been playing close attention to the ongoing debate over the future of cities in the age of Covid-19, and we believe that, along with the challenges, there will be opportunities to emerge stronger on the other side. This follow up piece serves as a light compendium of a few of the points and counterpoints we’ve seen on the topic, along with some of our thoughts and some supporting links. This is not at all an exhaustive list; a lot has been written about the future of cities after Covid-19. What’s included here are a few that caught our attention.
A useful introduction to the broader set of issues comes from Greg Lindsay of the New Cities Foundation in his talk “Inoculating the Planet.” Lindsay neatly frames the conversation around a few prevailing theories: “The city is dead,” “the office is dead,” “delivery is the future,” and “seek higher ground.” Taken as a whole, Lindsay’s framework paints a picture of a world driven by the “centrifugal” forces dispersing populations away from urban centers, to regions where the space is abundant, real estate affordable, the knowledge economy can march forward remotely, Amazon provides us everything we need, and we’re free and clear of the most imminent threats, from pandemics to climate change. Presenting an impressive array of data points, Lindsay’s refrain seems to be “not so fast.” While many indicators point in the direction of trouble, rumors of the death of cities, offices, and retail are probably exaggerated. Others have also called the death of the city an exaggeration, and have also pointed out that rumors of urban exodus are also tenuous, along with the relationship between density and the pandemic.
Pronouncements of the “death” of almost anything are almost always a hyperbolic narrative tactic. In the case of the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, it does seem mildly insensitive to use this tactic given the number of actual deaths of actual people. Lindsay, to his credit, uses these proclamations as straw-men, and we agree with the doubts about the demise of cities. We believe that our major metropolitan areas will continue to prosper, and will continue to be the vanguard of economic and cultural development. Large global cities represent a rich network of economic opportunity and production capacity that has developed over centuries (or more, depending on where you are in the world). So, while the pandemic has certainly brought with it a non-trivial downturn in dense urban economies, we are still believers in the power of sustainable, walkable cities, and personally we’re rooting for the recovery.
At the same time, we don’t believe that large cities will represent a singular means for access to economic opportunity or a singular path to sustainable development. We believe that lively, sustainable neighborhoods and economies will be both “here and there” — in dense cities and in less dense areas and regions. Furthermore, there are lessons learned in thriving cities and neighborhoods that can inform growth everywhere, and that our historical moment represents a unique opportunity to harness these lessons to ensure that lower-density urban growth and distribution of population happens sustainably and equitably.
Exploiting this opportunity will require attention and effort, and zero-sum arguments (dead vs. thriving, dense vs. sparse, city vs. suburb, urban vs. rural) don’t get us very far. Dense cities will continue to be engines of growth, and they will also offer rich cultural and social opportunities. Around half of the population of the world now lives in urban areas. This also means that there is another half who do not for many reasons, including simple preference. What the abrupt shift to remote work has changed is the availability of that choice. It has, in many ways, decoupled economic opportunity from place. Technology, generally, has also made people in towns, semi-dense, and rural areas more connected than ever. Some, like Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield, question how likely it is that companies will be able to reverse-course on remote-work policies, now that remote work has become standard. We are at the beginning of a new age where employee preference is beginning to outweigh employer preference.
This has already begun to re-weight the variables that inform housing decisions. When workers can go anywhere, preferences for affordability, natural amenity, and adequate early educational infrastructure can compete with or outweigh proximity to economic opportunity. For example, this shift of preference has already created a boom in many so-called “gateway” towns (urbanized hubs with access to major national parks and outdoor recreation areas). The impact on these places can be transformative, for both good and bad. On one hand, researchers at the Universities of Utah say that these places are “at risk of being loved to death.” On the other hand, urbanist and author, Richard Florida, points out that, in this new world, “talent is the new economic development.” If cities and towns can attract the talent, then the companies and economic opportunity will follow.
Of course this choice is not evenly distributed, and there will continue to be obvious sectors of the economy where physical proximity and presence is required. Our hypothesis, however, is that the redistribution of knowledge or service-sector workers who can operate remotely and asynchronously will have a real economic impact in places that have or develop the elements — access to nature, good schools, city-like cultural amenities — that drive housing decisions.
While the data indicating that people are on the move has mounted, the permanence of these moves, along with some of their root motives, seem to be still up for interpretation. Interestingly, early in the pandemic, the statements of Zillow CEO Brian Barton were often used to illustrate that, in fact, people were not looking to flee cities, and that online searches for real estate had remained strong in major cities. Several months later, in an earnings call, Barton said that we are in the midst of a “great reshuffling.” In his later comments, Barton highlights multiple reasons that people are moving, some catalyzed by Covid-19 but rooted more in practicality than fear: more space to work at home and the ability to live closer to family. He also calls this a “lasting, multiyear meaningful trend.”
It’s also worth noting that a trend away from larger cities seems to have preceded the pandemic. Before Covid-19, this migration — if we can call it that — was driven, somewhat ironically, by growth and the inability of major cities to absorb new citizens in their densest sectors and to do so affordably. Lindsay draws attention to this fact, citing his own research on residential real-estate trends among the Millennial generation. According to this research, Millennials were already migrating away from coastal cities in favor of places like Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Orlando, and Nashville. Elsewhere, Florida writes that “the big knowledge and tech hubs which once had such a stranglehold on attracting talent seem to be losing their allure” as smaller cities have closed the “amenity-gap” while “the housing-price gap has widened.” In other words, it is these places’ affordability and amenities, along with their ability to absorb new population influxes, that are driving their growth.
Increasingly, however, this absorption happens in the less dense, more affordable peripheries of these cities. According to US Census data, the top five fastest growing large cities (defined as cities with 50,000 or more inhabitants as of April 2010) between 2010 and 2019 are all satellites of Dallas, Phoenix, Austin/San Antonio, or Salt Lake City. Zooming into 2018 and 2019, the fastest growing was Leander, TX, outside of Austin. In fact, most of the growth in US cities in the last decade has occurred in the American South and Southwest, some of the least dense regions in the country.
Perhaps “great reshuffling” is the best term. Though there will be real, lasting impact to large cities from the loss of people and businesses, not all of these impacts will be negative. It is reasonable to expect that many residents who “flee” could be replaced by new urban migrants who take advantage of this transformed city.
Beyond the continuum between cities and their immediate peripheries, large scale remote work now offers an opportunity to think about networks of populations supported by businesses that transcend the simple relationship of physical proximity and labor movement. We need to think beyond the single city and start thinking about networks of settlements functioning regionally and beyond regionally.
This might sound like a return to Garden Cities of Tomorrow or the subsequent work of ‘Decentrists,’ whom Jane Jacobs critiqued in The Death and Life of Great American Cities. We also run the risk of appearing to condone what could be construed as another “white flight.”
But, we would argue that, in these cases, from Ebenezer Howard to the Decentrists to the flight of economically advantaged populations to the suburbs, the driving sentiments and forces were founded on a false dichotomy: Dense cities are bad for people (for whatever reason, from lack of access to nature to overpopulation to disease and crime) and a life closer to the land and nature is better. Recent dogma would have it the other way: Cities are good, highly sustainable engines of prosperity and low-density regions are bad, backward, economic sinks, and inexcusable drivers of climate change. Neither dichotomy is acceptable. Unlike the “Decentrists,” we are not suggesting an approach to planning that would intentionally dismantle and distribute urban populations. We are promoting a discussion about the 100%, about the best ways to shape trends already underway so that the “great reshuffling” might happen in a more sustainable and equitable way than it has in the past.
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Network Communities is jointly-authored and edited by Nash Hurley and Josh Emig.
Nash Hurley is the founder and principal at researched-based architecture practice Vital, based in San Francisco. Josh Emig is an independent consultant working on multiple projects to help companies think about and deliver innovative products in the built environment.
