With the mass population gripped in COVID fear and afraid to go to work, plus the virus lockdowns that have turned cities into ghost towns, the major shift from employees working at a centralized location in major metro areas to a more spread-out workforce in the suburbs and rural areas has trended forward, just as we had forecast in the Trends Journal in March.
What’s old news to those not brainwashed by mainstream crap is now making headlines in the mainstream news. Nicholas Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford University, told the Financial Times that the pandemic has already changed the U.S. into a “working from home economy.” He told the paper that the trend could reverse the growth of large cities.
They also quoted Joel Kotkin, an urban studies fellow at Chapman University in California, who agreed with Bloom and said the roles of cities will be diminished and will not be the “place of aspiration they used to be.”
Edward Glaeser, an economics professor at Harvard, told the FT that aside from the shift to remote work, cities are facing economic hardships due to lockdowns and the lack of tax revenues. The New York Times reported that New York City, for example, is expected to see its personal income tax revenue fall by $2 billion this fiscal year.
Glaeser said he is optimistic about cities in the long term because people crave social interactions.
It took the Wall Street Journal until June to report that COVID could be changing the importance of big cities. The paper reported that the population has become more tech-savvy and companies have learned employees can work effectively from home.
“Having learned that they can work effectively without having everybody in the office, companies won’t unlearn it,” the report said. The WSJ article concluded, “Cities might have to reinvent themselves all over again.”
TREND FORECAST: While the urban landscape has been dramatically altered by the COVID War that destroyed it, and suburban and exurban areas are booming as people exit big cities, we forecast they will begin to rebound following the mass vaccination of the population.
However, their rebirth will be stunted as the “Greatest Depression” worsens and crime rates rise. We will keep subscribers alerted to emerging trend lines that will forecast the rise and fall of residential and commercial real estate values across the spectrum.
