CityLab Daily: Covid Did Not Empty Out Big Cities
Also today: New York's budget delayed by bail law proposal, and US school districts are eager to electrify their bus fleets.
Manhattan is anything but empty during an Open Streets event on Fifth Avenue in December.
Photographer: Ryan Rahman/Pacific Press/LightRocketThe beginning of the pandemic gave rise to the fear of an urban exodus as people moved out of big cities, and as travel restrictions stymied the flow of immigrants into the US. Three years later, places like New York City, Chicago and San Francisco are still standing, and Covid-19 has yet to spark a dramatic shift in where Americans live. Instead, the pandemic accelerated trends and changes that were already well underway.
What has changed is where and how people work, with experts predicting that remote work is here to stay. Perhaps one of the most enduring changes — and one that few predicted — has been the massive spike in housing and rental prices, Richard Florida writes. Today on CityLab: The Pandemic Didn’t Upend US Geography
— Immanual John Milton