How Is Covid-19 Impacting Life in Your City?

[C.]

The Times Square example is a great comparison! Tourists love checking it out, but literally anyone else that lives in the city avoids it like plague if they can help it. One of the most annoying things living in New York is when you had friends or family come into town wanting to visit Times Square. You roll your eyes at first, suck it up, then go through the area dodging all the racist elmos, comedy club hustlers, and desnudas while passing all the overpriced corporate chains, including the county's most expensive Ruby Tuesday. There is so much more to NYC, superior products that can be had a better price in literally any other neighborhood, but to some visitors they are content shopping at Aldo and dinner at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company.

To someone's point, these types of tourist areas keep the money coming in, but let's not pretend that it's representative of city living. It's just a tourist trap. Let the tourist dollar's support it if there is demand. You'll be hard pressed to find a New Yorker on this forum that goes to Times Square to support the area's retail businesses.

Times Square was extremely seedy in the 70s. Giuliani cleaned it up pushing it to the other end of the spectrum. Like a Disneyworld, complete with a Disney store. COVID-19 will usher in another transformation. The point is, neighborhoods change and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

[Emprise du Lion]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Lol... This might touch a nerve but... Isn't that Chicago's business model? Attract a bunch of Midwesterners to shop at the same stores on the Mag Mile that they could shop at in their local mall? Sprinkle in dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, and a couple of pictures at the bean sculpture in Millennium Park, and call it a weekend.

Sort of, but there's a bit more to it than that. A lot of the mall chains on Michigan Ave are larger than versions found in other cities, so it can be nice to see items you'd only be able to see online back at home.

There's also plenty of stores, whether they're mall chains, department stores, designer boutiques, etc, that aren't going to be universally found in the rest of the Midwest.

I, for one, would like a Bloomingdales, Uniqlo, and Zara here in St. Louis, but sadly we don't have any.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Emprise du Lion

I, for one, would like a Bloomingdales, Uniqlo, and Zara here in St. Louis, but sadly we don't have any.

^ Well, thanks to Covid and Jeff Bezos ("Oh but he's a 'tech' CEO, so he's cool and we'll give him a pass!" ), Chicago probably won't have any of these stores within a couple of years either.

We all might as well just live in random subdivisions and get everything delivered to us. No reason for city living at all any more, the way consumer habits are trending. Even some of the most dedicated so-called urbanists here are watching this happen before their very eyes without even the slightest concept of how much our cities and makes them tick are literally fritting away.

[SIGSEGV]

I'm a bit confused because the reason I live downtown is decidedly not because Zara, Anthropologie and Macy's are a block away. Maybe there will be less reason for people from Libertyville to go downtown but I don't think many people live in the city because of Zara (do people in suburbs like living next to a mall?). How often do people buy clothes?

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

I'm a bit confused

You are. Stick to physics

Let the economy of cities be dealt with by people who actually care about that, instead of “I have no personal interest in going to stores to buy clothes, hence retailers aren’t important to the vibrancy of cities”

Forest for the trees

[JManc]

Uniglo, Express and Zara actually makes clothes that fit. The Gap and Macy's don't have the time.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

You are. Stick to physics

Let the economy of cities be dealt with by people who actually care about that, instead of “I have no personal interest in going to stores to buy clothes, hence retailers aren’t important to the vibrancy of cities”

Forest for the trees

A city with strong fundamentals will adapt to change.

[Toasty Joe]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

You are. Stick to physics

Let the economy of cities be dealt with by people who actually care about that, instead of “I have no personal interest in going to stores to buy clothes, hence retailers aren’t important to the vibrancy of cities”

Forest for the trees

you're coming off extremely pompous for someone who is lamenting the loss of a freakin Gap

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Toasty Joe

you're coming off extremely pompous for someone who is lamenting the loss of a freakin Gap

Let the economy of cities be dealt with by people who actually care about that, instead of “I have no personal interest in going to stores to buy clothes, hence retailers aren’t important to the vibrancy of cities”

Forest for the trees

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

A city with strong fundamentals will adapt to change.

Correct. And that adaption will probably be an end to a large amount of ground level storefronts, and more shopping from the couch of your 19th story condo.

...........why are we into cities again?

[mhays]

I'd love to have lots of street shopping and I do buy my clothes, food, etc., in person, but come on. Cities are about much more than shopping.

How about being able to walk out your door and get everything you DO need or want -- food, healthcare, transit, culture, friends and family, the office...

[Toasty Joe]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Let the economy of cities be dealt with by people who actually care about that, instead of “I have no personal interest in going to stores to buy clothes, hence retailers aren’t important to the vibrancy of cities”

Forest for the trees

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Correct. And that adaption will probably be an end to a large amount of ground level storefronts, and more shopping from the couch of your 19th story condo.

...........why are we into cities again?

ok boomer

[SpongeG]

something they have done in the Vancouver area and surrounding suburban cities is close down roads, either entirely to car traffic, or closed off two-lane roads into one-lane roads and changed some two-way roads into one-way roads to allow for more room for pedestrians and cyclists.

[twister244]

So, now that my company is supporting long-term (permanent) remote work, I have decided to put my condo up for rent in Denver and move to Chicago for a while. It's always been my home away from home, and I have tons of family there, so why not? Nothing against Denver, it's a great place, but the COI is getting high here, and I am not a hardcore outdoorsy or skiing guy.

Like I said earlier in this thread, there has to be tons of people all over the place thinking about making moves like this to live where they actually want to live, and not just where their "office" is at.

[10023]

There is no life on my city. It’s also been raining constantly and 3 days since I left the apartment.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by 10023

There is no life on my city. It’s also been raining constantly and 3 days since I left the apartment.

Can't you at least walk in a park or something?

I would go crazy if I didn't leave my apartment in a day, to say nothing of three.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Can't you at least walk in a park or something?

I would go crazy if I didn't leave my apartment in a day, to say nothing of three.

In the spring and summer, yes. When I say it hasn’t stopped raining since Sunday, I mean it hasn’t stopped raining since Sunday.

I have my bike attached to a turbo trainer for exercise but that’s it.

[10023]

Coronavirus sparks exodus of foreign-born people from UK

More than 1.3m may have left in past 12 months according to research that questions official data

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https://www.ft.com/content/def33cfe-...8-d4fc42051f09

Coronavirus has sparked an exodus of immigrants from the UK and what is likely to be the largest fall in Britain’s population since the second world war, according to a statistical analysis of official data.

A blog, published on Thursday by the government-funded Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE), estimated that up to 1.3m people born abroad left the UK between the third quarter of 2019 and the same period in 2020.

In London alone, almost 700,000 foreign-born residents have probably moved out, the authors of the blog calculated, leading to a potential 8 per cent drop in the capital’s population last year.

The study drew a clear link between the departure of so many foreign-born nationals and the high number of job losses in hard-hit sectors such as hospitality, which has typically relied on overseas workers.

...

https://www.ft.com/content/def33cfe-...8-d4fc42051f09


This country relies on EU nationals for the hospitality sector, not just because Brits don’t want the jobs but because they’re not as good at it. Without Italians, Spanish, French etc to staff restaurants (both front and back of house), London isn’t a liveable city. And now with Brexit having happened, most won’t return or be replaced by new ones.

Might be time to start looking for a place in Brooklyn. Guess I was here for peak London...

[Omaharocks]

^ Times may be rough in the UK for many, but trust me, things are no better here in the U.S. And there has been a similar exodus of immigrants due to rising unemployment, though not sure it's to same scale as UK.

U.S. democracy has been approaching the abyss for awhile, even Britain looks comparatively stable.

[toddguy]

It is impossible to schedule an appointment through Kroger for someone who is eligible starting Monday. Franklin County Public Health and Columbus Health Department have 1100 doses-combined. Kroger and Giant Eagle are it besides these two for the 1.3 million residents of Franklin County. Every time slot for some stores appears to be unavailable. There is no hotline number or coordinated response. They should have seen this coming-we have known for weeks it would be rolled out through local pharmacies. 3 different people trying to get info got 3 completely different responses from the pharmacy. lol.

This initial part of the general public rollout is turning out to be a sh#tshow. Prepare for the rest of it to be the same(what a surprise, huh?). Also good luck getting through any phone number, or getting any questions answered online either.

*everything has to be done online. Wtf?-we are talking about people 80 or over-as if they all have internet access or even computer literacy???There is no number to call, no hotline, other calls to customer service or the pharmacy get the same response-we don't know, do it online(which seems impossible as already stated). smh.