Urban Issues

A reader forwarded me an analysis of COVID-19 cases analyzed by the population density of California’s counties. The analysis had the concept right — if an infection is spread person to person, as in the case of COVID-19, then population density is likely to be an important “seeding” factor. That is there is virtually universal agreement that we need to practice social distancing of 6 feet or two meters to minimize the spread.  read more »

“US has more known cases of coronavirus than any other country” - CNN

Reading breathless headlines such as this, one would never know that the on a cases per million population basis, the United States  is on par with Germany, often held out as European country with a low incidence of cases, and well below the rates for Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, and Switzerland.  read more »

I just listened to a YouTube conversation where Jack Spirko and Curtis Stone discussed the “lock down” and “martial law” that’s been imposed on San Francisco in response to the Covid-19 situation. (Translation: jackbooted Socialist thugs have bludgeoned all the sheeple into submission robbing them of their personal liberty.)  read more »

"We won," the messenger announced, and then collapsed, and so becoming the most renowned victim of connectivity, spearheading the Marathon legacy. Pheidippides' death encapsulates the quest for and risks of connectivity; we see it as tragic and unnecessary because we now take it for granted that a message and its messenger can be separated. But when the message is the messenger, as in, reporting for work, the risk is real, witnessed by over a million annual road deaths globally as well as the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.  read more »

The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to widen even further the growing class divides now found in virtually every major country. By disrupting smaller grassroots businesses while expanding the power of technologies used in the enforcement of government edicts, the virus could further empower both the tech oligarchs and the “expert” class leading the national response to the crisis.  read more »

The COVID-19 pandemic will be shaping how we live, work and learn about the world long after the last lockdown ends and toilet paper hoarding is done, accelerating shifts that were already underway including the dispersion of population out of the nation’s densest urban areas and the long-standing trend away from mass transit and office concentration towards flatter and often home-based employment.   read more »

A week ago, I posted Early Observations on the Pandemic and Population Density, which suggested that the more worrying experience with the COVID-19 virus in the New York City metropolitan area could result from more intense person-to-person contacts:  read more »

With COVID-19 we are going through something practically no living soul has ever experienced. It may be forging new realities, and could place us at the edge of a big change —politically, economically, culturally, and spiritually. What this will look like nobody really knows, but there are some things we can glean about the emerging future.  read more »

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted class inequalities. Commentators in the US, UK, and Australia are acknowledging that working-class people are more likely to suffer as a result of both the virus and the measures put in place to contain its spread.  read more »

As you can imagine, we are now ensconced in our homes in New York City. We are fine, even though the numbers surrounding us are alarming. The street bare empty and quiet. The food stores are full. We go out every day for a walk, sometimes to the Hudson, sometimes to the East River, with masks and gloves, keeping safe distance from the occasional other. Whole Foods now opens for a special hour from 7:00am to 8:00 for seniors and once a week we go there at 7:00am. We do a lot of cooking, sometimes elevating dinners to gourmet level. We Zoom a lot with friends and family and colleagues.  read more »