Urban dwellers have been fantasizing about escaping to the suburbs and countryside since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. But while the virus is reshaping our cities, they will still be centres of growth and vibrancy in the years to come.
Even the most diehard downtown dwellers have to confess their fantasies of leaving Canada’s big cities during the pandemic. I’m an unrepentant urbanist yet finding myself slowly seduced by the delights of rural Ontario and the liberations of the Zoom office. Surely nothing beats doing international video calls from the back of a sailboat drifting up a Prince Edward County creek.
If it’s happening to me, and to others envying the backyards, front yards and space of suburbia, will a whole wave of urban residents move home and workplace out of the central city? Has COVID-19 fundamentally changed our view of city life? And will that new perception change the city itself?…Read more of “The resilient city…” by Joe Berridge, (Special to the Globe and Mail, October 2, 2020)
For more from urban planner Joe Berridge, see “Perfect City: Planner Joe Berridge Looks for Urban Magic” – a review of Berridge’s book “Perfect City” by Andrew Johnson at urbantoronto.ca (April 29, 2019)