No, Cities Aren't Doomed
Despite dire predictions to the contrary, Manhattan’s population increased last year. According to census figures out this week, it gained about 17,000 residents between 2021 and 2022. But although this reversed the previous two years’ losses, the population of New York County still remains below pre-pandemic numbers, and the rest of the boroughs saw more people move out than in. Other stats are concerning, too: Offices are only 55 percent occupied and transit ridership hovers at 62 percent, changing the way business districts function and creating enormous financial angst for the city and state. Looking at New York and elsewhere, trackers of real-estate trends have suggested that U.S. cities are on the brink of an “urban doom loop,” which basically sees lower property-tax revenues translating into less spending on city services, causing a decline in the quality of life, which in turn pushes more people to leave, repeating and worsening the cycle of disinvestment. While the “downtown is dead” declarations predate the pandemic — as do the campaigns attempting to revive central business districts — this inflection point may actually be an opportunity for city leaders to reimagine who downtowns actually serve, says David Madden, a sociologist and co-director of the Cities Programme at London’s School of Economics and Political Science, and co-author of In Defense of Housing: The Politics of Crisis. Three years after the start of the pandemic, Madden discusses why the rhetoric of doomed downtowns fails to account for what urban recovery can look like.