I wonder if this CV19 pandemic will impact the urbanization trend. We were seeing demographic shifts were more people wanted to live in big cities and that was impacting industries that were in more rural locations.
I wonder if this CV19 pandemic will impact the urbanization trend. We were seeing demographic shifts were more people wanted to live in big cities and that was impacting industries that were in more rural locations.
Depends how rural areas do. I am very worried. Hospitals in rural areas were already folding before this happened; for someone in respiratory distress, a long EMS response time + ride to the hospital may be a death sentence.
This is especially concerning in highlands Colorado. There was a story the other day of a 55 y/o who was found dead in his home during a welfare check by local PD. Supposedly a few days ago he had told a friend that he had flu like symptoms but nothing concerning.
If a lot of people get sick all at once in the mountains - particularly if they keep get snow through April - it will hugely strain the EMS/hospital system up there. They will likely need to send a lot of people out via air ambulance to SLC or Denver.
Not to mention the devastation that this virus has caused to the local economies, which were 100% dependent on ski/outdoors tourism. That's been shut down for at least a week now if not longer.
I think this will be regional - I mean the closest big industry to me is a pulp and paper mill a couple of towns over that was all but shut down just a few weeks ago; unprofitable, workers on strike for months over cuts to pay and layoffs, no chance of reopening the mill, industry failing. They are now running double shifts trying to meet the demand for everything needed to make masks and gowns, to say nothing of toilet paper.
People are playing ball with social distancing and nobody is getting within six feet of anybody...frequently the distancing is more like fifty feet and then people cross the street, waving at you as they cross.
Our province projects that we will not be short of ventilators based on current modelling so here, specifically...we are expecting to do pretty well.
Forty miles across the water in Vancouver they are going flat out trying to stop people from transmitting the disease. They're having an extremely hard time shutting down massive Indian weddings, for example. People are reliant on public transit. Everyone lives in apartment buildings because a teardown house an hour outside of town costs a million dollars (or some very large fraction thereof). I would say it's almost impossible to imagine that the inherent weaknesses of high-density living are not being exposed to people right now.
The only way this DOESN'T become a serious referendum on urban density is if the media is so thoroughly drawn from an exclusively urban demographic that they don't actually realize there are places outside of NYC etc which might be faring differently.
And I think that is a genuine possibility.
Nephrology makes excellent points. Also, moves to population centers has always been about jobs. No one enjoys long commutes, and even if some people are willing to make long commutes, most can't afford it, both in lost personal time, and actual expenses for the travel. People will continue to go where the jobs are, and the desire to keep commutes short, and affordable, will limit how spread out people can be in their home choices.
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"Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then I said, "Here I am. Send me." - Isaiah 6:8
Living in a relatively sparsely populated area has its benefits, but it has drawbacks as well in terms of how well it is medically served, etc. Less doctors, beds, etc.
Those who need a lot of medical attention might need to consider those limits.
There's nothing civil about this war.
One of the reasons I stay in my suburban/near urban area is because of the medical infrastructure that is easily available to me.Originally Posted by Nephrology
" La rose est sans pourquoi, elle fleurit parce qu’elle fleurit ; Elle n’a souci d’elle-même, ne demande pas si on la voit. » Angelus Silesius
"There are problems in this universe for which there are no answers." Paul Muad'dib
My hardware/building materials business in a rural area is chugging along. Currently, I am one of only four businesses open in this town. We are a huge tourist destination and there are more than 40 businesses currently shut down and probably won't re-open for the summer season. This is when I will feel the economic pain.
On a purely anecdotal note, I am seeing a bunch of new faces in my store buying building materials. Makes me a bit nervous concerning the spread of C(19), but it also indicates that people are making a shift towards improving cabins and vacant property in our area. I doubt it will be a permanent solution for most of them, but during these quarantine days they seem to be escaping the city to serve out their "lock down" time.
We're too far from the major employers to commute, but we do have good internet, so I imagine some that can work remote might take up residence here permanently.
I could see this event shaking people loose from the upsides of urban life. Could be a real kick in the shorts to the smart growth movement.
If this short-term work from home movement becomes an actual paradigm shift, then the link between jobs and cities could be permanently weakened and the commute factor disappears.
I think this a great question and a great topic. Here in Washington State, and I'm sure many other states, there has been a mantra of "density is good" for land use planning. There has also been that resurgence that you mention, where everyone is moving to cities to work in the tech arena. There are obviously some reasons that density is good, such as avoiding impacts on agricultural uses. And rural living has the issues that Nephrology mentioned, lack of easy services and things like floods and wildfires (Paradise California).
Edited to add: There are rural 5-20+ acre lots in my area that have potential exposure to both flooding and wildfire, due to canyon type geography.
I'm not sure that the choice is necessarily between super high density dwelling such as that in New York City vs. rural living. There may be a certain logic in quarter-acre lot sizes that are somewhat frowned upon right now, or just any sort of a suburban single family lot with a decent separation.
I don't know what the answer is, but I think people may be a little less willing to live in things that appear to be modern tenements that remind me of the movies "Once Upon a Time in America" or "Godfather II".
I truly feel for the people in New York City who are essentially stuck right next to their neighbors, and get exposed multiple times just to leave to shop for groceries. (I don't know what the answer is there).
Last edited by idahojess; 03-28-2020 at 12:14 PM.
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