Coronavirus Will Not Harm Urbanization, Cities 'Will Come Back Even Stronger'

The novel coronavirus has hit densely populated cities like New York hard.

But it won’t mean the end of urbanization, according to Richard Florida, professor of economics and urban planning at the University of Toronto, who has studied historical pandemics and their impacts on cities.

“I have now looked at the history of pandemics and plagues going back centuries. Not once has any serious — the bubonic plague, the Black Plague, the Spanish flu, we can go on — dented the course of urbanization. New York, London, Paris, Rome, we can go on, have all remained great cities,” Florida told Yahoo Finance On the Move. “I think cities actually have a very interesting bright future. What we find is that in history of crises, in history of pandemics, the young people, ambitious people, people from rural areas who want better jobs flock to cities.”

But Florida acknowledges that urban areas may be negatively impacted in the short term as families with young children and older people move to the suburbs.

“Those folks are going to leave places like New York City or Chicago or the inner city,” he said, adding that “new families, older and vulnerable city dwellers who planned to move in the next two to three years might consider moving in the next few months.”