Abstract
This paper examines the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and its related economic, fiscal, social and political fallout on cities and metropolitan regions. We assess the effect of the pandemic on urban economic geography at the intra- and inter-regional geographic scales in the context of four main forces: the social scarring instilled by the pandemic; the lockdown as a forced experiment; the need to secure the urban built environment against future risks; and changes in the urban form and system. At the macrogeographic scale, we argue the pandemic is unlikely to significantly alter the winner-take-all economic geography and spatial inequality of the global city system. At the microgeographic scale, however, we suggest that it may bring about a series of short-term and some longer-running social changes in the structure and morphology of cities, suburbs and metropolitan regions. The durability and extent of these changes will depend on the timeline and length of the pandemic.
Highlights
COVID-19 is not the first virus to strike our cities, nor will it be the last
The second focuses on the arrangement of people and activity within urban regions, between central and suburban areas, and at the finer granularity of neighbourhoods and districts. We examine these issues through the lens of urban and economic geography, by which we seek to contextualise limited evidence from shortterm trends in a longer-term dynamic perspective
We look beyond the initial emergency phase of the pandemic, involving strong restrictions on daily life and interactions that occurred roughly from early 2020 to mid-2021
Summary
COVID-19 is not the first virus to strike our cities, nor will it be the last. Over the course of history, cities have often been hotbeds of contagion. The combination of connectivity and type of work, at a time when distancing measures were not in place, made large cities ideal targets for severe outbreaks (Glaeser, 2020; Hamidi et al, 2020).
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