Cities Are Not Dead. Just Regrouping.

By Karen and Erica

Nostradamus lives in our pandemic world. And he is predicting, through the pens of numerous solemn commentators, that city life is over, and suburban life is where it’s at. Density is done, and sprawl is cool.

Well, we think his powers of prognostication have failed him. Or at least they are terminally temporal.

There is no doubt that COVID caused a lot of people who generally live in the city to decamp to their second homes. Some of them will not be back. Others decided to buy houses in the suburbs so their children can have backyards, and lawns, and playing fields. Some of them will live happily ever after (when they have power). Some city dwellers bought homes on the beach, at exorbitant prices, so they could homestead in the Hamptons. (Yes, this story made us chuckle.) Some of them will be happy biodynamic farmers forever.

But a lot of all of them will be back.

Of course, huge numbers of people remained in the cities. Many had no choice. Many did, but realized that they would be happier in their urban lairs, at home, and safer in the city should they need resources. And there are quite a few people actually moving into the city for the first time, since this is a fabulous time to buy an urban home.

We are urbanites who cannot imagine giving it all up. We love the diversity, the energy, the grit. We love our offices. We love our neighborhood shops. We don’t like to drive everywhere. And we know history. Suburban flight has not always worked out very well, for all kinds of reasons.

We believe that cities must be the way of the future, because density is the only way to house our growing populations. And, cities are simply greener than suburban sprawl. We are glad people are thinking creatively about new types of green buildings—we love this garden-city, though being a self-sufficient vertical gated community seems anti-urban. The whole point of urban is to be inclusive and interdependent, and surely that can be combined with sustainable design.

We do not ignore the human costs of the pandemic, which are all around us and have surely dampened the pleasures of city life. We are angry, and discouraged, that the virus has been permitted to wreak such havoc upon us all, including we city dwellers. But we are not inclined to leave on that account.

By the same token, if the pandemic forces some changes in city living, we will be pleased.

When we started our jobs, our cities were vibrant places full of strivers, like us, from all kinds of places and backgrounds. We were all barely making ends meet. But we did. It was hard, but it was not impossible. We all worked and played together, and we helped build our communities into places we loved. It was because we were all thrown together that city living was so much fun.

Young people today want the same vibe. They need to live in a city. But it is close to impossible for young and less wealthy people to live in the city. That was brought home to us recently, as we looked for a rental apartment for a recent college graduate, and his two roommates, all of whom have good jobs. It was very difficult to find a three bedroom apartment that they could afford. That is just absurd. Just as it is absurd that essential personnel without whom we would not be able to survive in the city have to commute for hours each day to get to work.

Many cities have become far too expensive, partly because there is not nearly enough urban housing stock. Priorities need to be reconsidered. The U.S. has a national housing crisis, and no national housing policy. Regulations and incentives are skewed to benefit wealthy owners far more than less wealthy renters. it is difficult to discern a twenty-first century objective served by these policies. We are all paying a price.

Cities are already very age-friendly, because they offer so many amenities, and are easier to navigate without a car. But city leaders could profitably focus more on the benefits of intergenerational living. Real diversity includes age.

Thinking differently about how urban society functions would lead to productive change. A national housing policy would help, and we can’t think of a better focus for a federal infrastructure program than building new, green, affordable housing.

Cities are here to stay. Once the immediate disaster of the pandemic subsides, cities will get their mojo back, and their people too.

We’ll be here!