Urban Growth Will Continue

Writing in the American Economic Review in 2002, Donald Davis and David Weinstein, two American economists, showed how Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after being flattened by the atomic bomb, resumed their growth paths 20 years later-powerful proof of the resilience of cities.

The umbilical link with place of work and the city won't disappear.

A basic rule of urban economics is that improvements in communications and transportation allow cities to expand.

In most cities, those who continued to commute during the pandemic consciously shunned public transit for fear of contagion, returning to car use when possible.

For cities like New York and Montreal, governments will have little choice but to step forward.

For cities with already-weak urban transit systems, it will be a different story.

The rediscovered focus on home may reenergize antidevelopment forces in cities, especially regarding new housing construction.
 

https://www.city-journal.org/post-covid-urban-growth