What changes and what reverts to norm? That’s the big question as most of the impacts of the pandemic become less acute.
Some behaviour has snapped back fast. Others (think working from the office) is in a slow wind back to a yet unknown destination.
For those who think about cities for a living (14.8 million people in the property industry for
starters), delegates at our recent Property Congress in Hobart were given some fascinating insights.
Author and renowned urbanist Richard Florida argued that the arc of urbanisation has not been knocked off course. His view is that “urbanisation is a bigger force than infectious disease” and that economics of agglomeration was alive and well.
Indeed, his thesis was that the pandemic had actually accelerated the rise of the creative class – his term for the cohort shaping our cities and our economies.
For Florida, the need for connection remains an important economic power for the individual, firm and the economy.
While it is right to seek to understand what the pandemic has changed, it’s also vital not to ignore those fundamentals of the human condition that will continue to shape the future.
