Covid was go time for introverts. Suddenly they felt at ease not having to leave the spaceship. My gf won't let go. I swear she's going to wear a mask all summer.

It's been back to normal for quite a while (unincorporated area)....
sorry? :shrug:

Hell, I'm one of them who moved out.

I think that's more of a Toronto specific phenomenon of the last 2 years particularly though, and Toronto / Montreal are likely the furthest behind from "returning to normal" as well.

As offices start to return to in person work more I fully expect the city to liven up more as people have to return to the city for work, and a lot of those who moved away slowly move back.

It'll be interesting to see how things are a year from now as we finally seem to be pulling out of COVID more or less for good. What does that look like? Right now in Toronto it's essentially immediately following the lifting of restrictions, it was obviously not going to bounce back 100% immediately. By fall universities will be fully back to classes, basically all offices will be done their return to work transitions, etc.

Phoenix is busier and more bustling than ever. Tons of new people and businesses and development all over.

But we were only locked down for like April -June of 2020, Other than federally required mask stuff and capacity restrictions at restaurants we were back to normal by fall of 2020, Of course we benefited from the general trends that Covid made more intense. Mainly California exodus and Boomers moving to the sunbelt

open city --
hospitalizations and cases way down --
much nicer people all around --
crowded subway rush hours again --
masks only on transit and a few scattered restaurants and businesses --
some lingering homeless issues and uptick in violence issues --
cold af lately, march is all in like a lion, but a nice upcoming out like a lamb spring is definitely in the air --

LA feels sleepy to me but I’m a recent transplant from New York. I kind of like it though. The city has this vibe like it’s “lightly breathing”, sort of on Xanax, instead of full out panic like NYC before businesses were forced to shut.

New York is not what it used to be, still. I don’t know if it’ll ever really feel the same, since huge swaths of former business districts are feeling the effects of WFH. Funny how some still think that this will eventually go away- it won’t. WFH is here to stay and it’ll impact expensive office cities more than others. NYC, SF.... I’m looking at you.

Silly for omicron to have set back anything. It’s less dangerous than flu.

Anyway, I think the comparison between London and NYC is interesting. Our lockdown was stricter and longer than yours, and then we had two more (right through spring of 2021). But Covid wasn’t weaponized politically like it was in the US - there were some attempts by Labour to mimic the Democrats in the US and blame everything on Boris Johnson’s government, but it’s not like their own voters were itching for more lockdowns, rules and restrictions. The middle class old folks that were nervous are actually mostly Tories. And you had nothing like the hospitality situation in NYC, where 20-something staff were (and are) acting like allowing indoor dining/dropping mask rules/dropping vaccine mandates is putting their lives at risk. Here everyone in hospitality just thought it was bullshit that their industry was shut down for so long.

Basically in England you had top-down, government mandated rules that most people tried to shirk as much as they possibly could (which was not much, because businesses were actually forced to close for a really long time), while in NYC it seems like you had a lot of “woke” bullshit in opposition to and stemming from Trump’s nonchalance about Covid. As a result, things here went pretty much back to normal as soon as the rules were dropped (though people still didn’t want to go to the office, so areas of London dependent on commuters have taken longer to bounce back). It doesn’t sound like that’s the case in NYC.

It hasn't been THAT cold. We had two 70 degree days this week.

Ottawa(-Gatineau) is really bad too as the office building crowd is very predominantly government workers or paragovernmental, and these have been the employers who have maintained WFH the longest. (They still do for the most part.)

Whereas private sector white collar staff have been more likely to return to the office in person.

I wonder if DC is the same and if downtown office districts there are still fairly deserted?

I was just watching Phoenix news yesterday, they were talking about downtown development. Looks great! Yeah I don't think general American migration trends are going to change much but regionally. I think we'll see alot more suburban development. Alot more town center type stuff. I think urban Americas rep is tarnished for a bit so downtown is going to need to work on its PR in alot of places. I think affordable blue metros in red states and swing states are going to see a banner decade. Ohio River valley and inland west im looking at you.

LA isn't sleepy. It's laid back.

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The government worker phenomenon must be a thing. Its the same thing on the west coast. They're all working at home but the private sector is going back. It must be some kind of equity argument thats making wfh persist.

As far as the government goes, spending can be reduced by keeping WFH due to a whole host of costs.
I'm assuming most of the WFH pushback is more from an urbanist tilt, since it will reduce foot traffic and all those things urbanists like?

It has been the opposite in NY. City and state workers returned to the office back in summer and fall of 2020, while the white collar private sector stayed home.

I'll tell you who never ever once shutdown in my building, the title company, mortgage folks and the realtors. They've been open from the get go. Our company was technically open (utility) but most stayed at home. Genentech opened a giant call center here fall of 2019. I haven't seen a single one of those people for two years.

and now you seem like a clairvoyant! :cheers:

Paris is busy, less than before COVID 19 but the city is still bustling with life.
Subway is crowded during peak hours.

Yeah, seriously.

Don't forget how the Trucker Convoy closed downtown Ottawa for over 3 weeks just as covid restrictions were being relaxed in February. Ottawa has further to recover than Toronto or Montreal. Let's hope for a quick rebound.

Pretty much back to normal in Northern Arizona. Traffic sucks and my office has been hybrid for at least a year. That's been pretty helpful with gas prices rising.