Transit, urban activity, and urban prospects

From Transit Carried 74.9% of 2019 Riders in November by Antiplanner.  

Taking 2019 as the base of comparison for pre-Covid-19, the four major modes of transportation did not return to 2019 levels until:

Driving - May 2021

Air - December 2022

Amtrak - July 2023

Mass Transit - Not yet.  Still roughly at 75% of pre-Covid volumes

Obviously, most mass transit systems are in large cities and there are a good number of large cities whose population dynamics have substantially shifted.  As measured by cell phone usage, most cities are still significantly below the degree of population activity density as existed in 2019.  From Downtown Recovery Rankings.  

For the 66 largest cities, the average is only 76% of the level of 2019 activity.  

If all the mass transit systems are in the largest cities, then the low usage rate of mass transit is virtually identical (75%) to the low level or return to cities (76%).  Obviously that won't hold true for every single city but it is a striking aggregate figure.

It seems like there are four possible take-aways from this data.  Not necessarily new information, but at least confirming information.  

1) Mass transit is extremely sensitive to urban health

2) Mass transit is not particularly resilient to changes in demand

3) Our cities are not OK.  

4) The timing of the returns to normal usage are suggestive. 

While the Covid-19 lock-downs were a demand-side shock to all forms of transportation, the different modes have been differently resilient.  Marking February 2020 as the beginning of the public health pandemonium,  it took 

Driving - 15 months for a return to normal

Air - 34 months for a return to normal

Amtrak - 41 months for a return to normal

Mass Transit - 46 months and no prospect of a return to normal on the horizon.

Everyone in real estate and urban planning is speculating on the commercial, financial, and transportation ramifications if urban centers remain at low levels of utilization.  Obviously the finances of mass transit become perilous (not having been healthy in the first place.)

There is a great deal of concern that we might be at a tipping point with substantial write-downs in urban commercial real-estate values which would have large financial ripple effects but might in the longer term serve as an inducement for people and commerce to return.

But the protracted delay in urban activity is suggestive that there is more going on than simply a delayed response to the Covid-19 lockdowns.

The George Floyd riots of May 2020 were nearly coterminous with the public health responses to Covid-19 beginning in February 2020.  It becomes challenging to disentangle which events were causal of which outcomes.

My suspicion is that four causal events happened in this time period and that they augur a slow return to urban vitality and possibly represent an inflection point signaling a greater geographical distribution of activity across the nation with a lot of implications, including prolonged urban stagnation.

1)  Covid-19 lockdowns initiated a mass experiment in virtual and distributed work patterns.  People and companies discovered that some or much or all of the work of their employees could be done as efficiently and effectively remotely as it had been in meatspace before.

2)  The Floyd riots incentivized residents of cities to find alternative residential locations at least for the duration and the longer it took for activity to return the less likely they were to return.

3) The Floyd riots prompted significant questions about the competence of most big city governance structures.  Not only were they not able to manage the public health emergency of Covid-19 but they were also not able to maintain civic order in the face of the riots.  Additionally, the authoritarian nature of most of the responses (to both the public health emergency and the riots), almost certainly also reduced the incentive of residents to return.  

4)  Most major cities responded to the riots either by defunding police departments (only a few cities) or reducing the scope and intensity of policing activities (most cities) significantly below below pre-2020 levels.  As a consequence most major cities have seen increases in violent crime in the region of 10-35%.  While highly concentrated within particular areas of a city and not affecting most residents, the headline figures still would tend to suppress return rates.

My suspicion is that the imposed virtualization of work will revert back to a mean that is greater than it was but less than the peak.  Employers will have figured out what can be done remotely and will be incented to provide that option from an employee retention perspective but inversely, employees will be required to return to the office to a greater degree than they want but still much less than before.  

To the degree this is true, and to the degree that residents are reluctant to return because of perceived crime issues or perceived governance competence issues, then cities are likely facing a structural barrier to a return to vitality.

Further, I suspect that 2023 was the year of Peak-Woke (Social Justice Theory, Postmodernism, Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory, ESG, DEI, etc.).  These ideologies and policies have been most enthusiastically received and cultivated in select big cities and in universities (many of which are sited in big cities.)  If 2023 was indeed Peak-Woke, then that may exacerbate the negative perception of governance and further reduce return rates.

If these suppositions have merit, then we end up with a perfect storm of negative implications for big cities.  The past 3 1/2 years will have 

Shown a capacity of virtual work conditions requiring less centralized meatspace time.

Created increased crime as a disincentive to return.

Cultivated a loss of confidence in governance capability (owing to Covid-19 response and Floyd riot response).

Encouraged a loss of confidence in governance capability owing to a rising aversion to Woke policies.

There is always the inherent strength of cities to offset these trends - cities are highly productive.  In addition, the more people stay away from cities, lower will be real estate costs go; possibly offset by rising operational costs and taxes.

One final speculative thought.  In the late 1960s we had widescale and deeply destructive urban riots across the US, most affecting the largest cities.  It seems like it took 20-25 years, maybe the late 1990s before most big cities regained and surpassed their earlier vitality.  And some never did (ex. Detroit).  

Twenty years later, we have these new stress tests that drove people out again (Covid-19 and the somewhat less violent Floyd riots).  How many cycles of implosion and rejuvenation can we experience?  Maybe that it just the norm and we should anticipate a 40-50 year cycle of creative destruction when it comes to cities.  

Or is it a phenomenon where twice burned, thrice wise?

Who knows?