Quite what life will be like post-Covid is a question on many lips as we begin to see light at the end of the tunnel.  A new paper from Wharton explored how our mobility has recovered during 2021, and reveals that we are still some way off pre-Covid levels of mobility.  What’s more, many of our towns and cities are showing changing segregation patterns, which could have an impact far beyond the pandemic itself.

The researchers focused on cities with a high demand and inelastic supply of real estate, which resulted in high house prices in relation to incomes.  These so-called “superstar cities” include New York and San Francisco.

“There’s a huge debate raging in terms of if these expensive cities will ever get back to their 2019 baseline or if people will flee for good,” the researcher says. “What we want to look at is whether the pandemic is going to change these big cities forever or will they bounce back, which is why we’re looking at big cities in particular.”

Tracking mobility

Using smartphone data, the mobility of millions of people was tracked across various locations, which allowed the researcher to understand the point of origin and the destination to understand how mobility networks changed across space and time in 100 of the largest cities in the country.

One clear finding is that there is still a significant reduction in footfall in traditional centers as areas like leisure and recreation are still seeing hugely reduced custom.

“The data tell a stark story of how little we are doing compared to before the pandemic,” the researcher says. “The visuals show a huge drop, and it probably will take a long time for things to get back to normal.”

Continued segregation

As well as reduced movement, the data also highlights the segregation in various major cities, with communities becoming increasingly homogenous.  What’s more, these communities were less likely to mix with those different from their own.

“As visits declined, neighborhoods realigned,” the researcher says. “People are going to fewer new neighborhoods, and the consequence is that people are less likely to interact with people from other races, so we’ve become more segregated. That has profound consequences in terms of the purpose of a city, and it’s a big deal if people don’t interact with each other.”

The paper argues that these findings will have significant implications for the way in which cities will look to rebuild after Covid as there are clear advantages to improving diversity and enhancing the connectivity between districts and communities.  For instance, better transport links might be encouraged, while amenities such as gathering spaces and restaurants become more decentralized.

Such mobility is likely to be particularly important as we emerge from the pandemic to explore what patterns rebound and what patterns remain distinct from pre-Covid times.

“The task for the next year will be to keep monitoring if people are going back to what they were doing or if there’s going to be a drift, and this data really calls to that,” the author concludes.