Once again, there’s a naive and unsubstantiated association between urbanism and the pandemic Portland and Multnomah County have some of the lowest rates of Covid-19 cases of any large metro area The big drivers of Covid-19 susceptibility are poverty, housing…
What City Observatory this week 1. Postcards from the Edges: Looking at the relationship between density and the pandemic. There’s a widely circulating meme associating urban density with the spread of the Covid-19 virus, undoubtedly because people know that the…
There’s a meme equating density with Covid-19 risk. Two polar cases shows that density (or lack thereof) has little to do with the spread of the pandemic. Many, including New York’s Governor, have been quick to blame density for the…
Using county-level data, it depends on who’s classification system you use Counties may not be the right basis for diagnosing the contributors to Covid. One of the oft-repeated claims in the pandemic is the notion that cities and density are…
Shape of the urban/suburban divide: Views differ There’s a lot of debate about the relative merits and performance of cities and suburbs. You’ll read that the migration to cities has come to a halt, that suburbs are growing faster than…