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.

I did a trip around the western US and, while I expected it, I was still a bit shocked by how normal everything was, and how pleasant it was to be out doing things normally (add in nicer weather and it's hugely better). I don't really feel as comfortable around even medium sized groups as I did before, not because of perceived covid risk but because it's not routine for me anymore.

Of course when I came back to Canada they "randomly selected" me for a post-arrival PCR test to go with my pre-arrival PCR test. That is the vibe here. We're still not back to normal but this may turn out to be the very end since the mask mandate just got dropped and the vaccine passport will be dropped soon. I think things will bounce back somewhat this summer.

Many of the places I used to go to in Vancouver are gone now or don't operate as they did before, and I've noticed there is more "street disorder" than before. People smoking crack outside of the traditional areas where you'd expect that, more homeless camps around the fringe of the city. My neighbourhood probably has worse amenities for residents (shops and so on) than it did 10 years ago even though it's seeing tons of condo development, although we have gotten a few nice new things and in my little area the restaurants held on just fine. Vancouver was very expensive before all this happened and there was a general sense that a lot of the nightlife was withering away and wouldn't come back. The pandemic amplified a lot of the trends already happening.

I'm actually starting to miss the 2020 post-apocalyptic vibe of the city.

You never know what you have until it's gone.

I certainly miss the lack of traffic. And short lines at the airport. The last couple months, stuck in lines everywhere again, I keep thinking, "did we really live like this?" Can we go back to 2021 please?

I think LA is in a sweet spot in terms of traffic. I can't drive to Venice Beach from the Valley in 20 minutes anymore, but traffic hasn't completely returned to the pre-pandemic gridlock. There are still jams in the usual places like Sepulveda Pass and in the beach cities at the end of a hot day, but moving around the region is not as horrible as I remember it.

Exactly.

And now that inflation is so high as are gas prices, there's even more reason for me to sit my ass at home.

Transit, anyone? ;)

Berlin is getting there. There are still storefront scars around but the popular areas have recovered. We're enjoying some kind of freakish early spring, which helps. Parks are filling up. There's music in the streets. Australians are crawling out of whatever caves they spend their winters in. Tourists are coming back--my wife claims she even saw a selfie stick. Ubahns are starting to get crowded again. Maybe most importantly--symbolically if anything--clubs have reopened. Checked out a party last week and people were out of their minds. There's been a lot of pent up energy, which in February meant people rolling in pubs and trying to make out with everyone; now they have their outlet back. It looks like it'll be a good summer.

In Stockholm, restrictions were so light and masking so absent throughout that you didn't really notice the pandemic beyond some odd opening hours and a muted level of activity (I like how the poster above said their city was kind of Xannied). It's all gone now, though. Nobody is making even the slightest gesture towards it.

The way that Swedes kind of did COVID while not doing COVID still leaves me scratching my head.

I mean, it wasn't Florida. It wasn't oppositional.

They just sort of said "of course, of course, this is very important" throughout but actually did next to nothing.

It's like how I'm super-agreeable when I'm sleeping in and don't want to be woken up "sure, sure -- yeah, go to the store, sounds great, I'll be here zzz).

^ Good for them!

Were clubs open the whole time like in Miami though? I feel like most places that didn’t have “lockdowns” still restricted nightlife because the young don’t vote.

your blithe yammering is what is dangerous. :rolleyes:


Study: Death 40% More Likely From Omicron Than From Flu

https://khn.org/morning-breakout/stu...than-from-flu/

lol no, not that warm, but mostly bad and miserable lately, and dangerous ice storm all day the day before. but better already this morning and as i said by next week it should turn spring like instead of relentless winter like.

As a fellow Philadelphian, I agree with your assessment--even the less than favorable portions of it (though the crime wave we're experiencing certainly hasn't slowed the number of people moving here). The advantage that Philly had and continues to have over other cities, is that we've always had a large residential population in Center City. While it certainly feels differently than it did in 2019, it never really felt as "dead" as other cities I've visited. Also, it seems like the retail corridors outside of Center City are busier than ever. I live in Fairmount (at least until I move to Northwest Philly in two weeks), and Fairmount Avenue is jumping. Same with Frankford Avenue (Fishtown), Main Street (Manayunk), Passyunk Avenue (South Philly), Germantown Avenue (Chestnut Hill), and others.

Anecdotally, it seems like Regional Rail ridership is starting to come back. Due to my runs on the Schuylkill River Trail, I've been taking the R6 Manayunk/Norristown Line a lot recently. While ridership is still down, the trains are starting to feel packed again at certain times. I won't divulge into what position I hold, but I will say that the numbers I've been seeing seem to support my experiences.

There were two periods from around Nov '20-Mar-'21 and Nov '21-Feb '22 when opening hours were restricted such that all bars closed at 8 p.m., which killed clubs. But outside of those two periods, everything rolled as usual.

We got rid of restrictions in early February and there were impromptu velvet rope scenes all around town, pop-up clubs and all sorts of stuff, girls shivering in miniskirts in -5 outside face control :haha:

So I guess there was still some degree of people feeling cooped up.

There were still private events selling tickets that blurred a lot of lines, though, even during those periods. I attended one on NYE and caught COVID there....

rite of passage I guess.

Our cousin is a dick.

Covid, like all viruses, and all forms of life on Earth, is our distant cousin.

What a jerk off Covid is

SF seems to be pretty darn normal except for Downtown. I work at 2nd and Mission and I would say it is about 30 to 40% of normal foot traffic on good days. I will be going to the office today and it will be a literal ghost town since it is Friday. For some reason hardly any of the workforce is back and at most those who are back are only back 3 days a week (like my office). No conventions either. I would say about 50% of the restaurants shuttered for good and sit vacant. I feel really bad for the ones still hanging in there. Since Downtown is probably the only place there isn't a significant residential population it still is really hit hard.

Super-accurate. Made me laugh, because of how accurate you described the past 2 years.

I think 3 days/week is prob as good as we're gonna get for the foreseeable future. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is. Will prob need to start looking into ways to get more residents living in the FiDi.

Lots of weirdos still wearing masks in the most liberal uppity of neighborhoods. Not sure it’s because they’re still paranoid or is to show how much holier than thou they are. Very strange.

It doesn't bother me that some people choose to wear masks, but I'd say my area is still maybe 40% masked up outside (far away from transit/businesses), which doesn't make a lot of sense. It's very common here to see people riding their bike or walking/jogging along a path by themselves with a mask on.

I was back in New York this week and a huge number of people are still masked, alone, walking, biking and even driving. I think a large chunk of the population likes being masked and will continue to mask themselves for the foreseeable future.

At this point I’m not sure it’s virtuous, I think it’s actually anxiety and paranoia related. A lot of people would prefer to not show their faces, and prefer to maintain their anonymity. Like it or not, the draconian measures have changed society and some people have quite literally gone insane.

You still see some of this in LA but I’ve seen less here than in New York.

Covid was the introvert prom but now school is back in session and all the weird kids have the jitters. You should come to my neighborhood. Its full of awkward kids and their weird parents still living out the shutdown.

If you haven't been downtown in the last few years its another world.

When I was a kid downtown was abounded to like a near Detroit level. The change is nothing short of astonishing. Downtown, in my opinion is now equal to if not surpassing mill avenue for nightlife, and close to old town, but it still lacks the high end dinning and clubs of Scottsdale. Id prefer to keep the clubs in Scottsdale but I would like downtown to have some nice higher end restaurants. Sucks having to take a 20-30 minute uber for nice steakhouse

Can you show me the news story you watched? the boys in the local forum love that kind of stuff :cheers:

This is projection nonsense. We use public transit. Masks are still required on public transit.

Yes, I understand that. And I didn’t say anything about Public Transit in my post... I’m referring to the people who have mask fetishes outside of Transit.

Not sure how that’s projection, but I’m not here to argue with you or try and prove you wrong, which seems to be something you like spending your time doing with people you don’t agree with.

Yes you are here to argue. Don't act like you didn't make an inflammatory statement just to get a rise out of people. We aren't dumb.

Yeah, if I were here to argue.. you took the bait. But I’m not.

Sorry I offended you. Clearly you’re one of the mask cultists and were horribly offended by my observation. Move on.

meh, that's a bunch of uninformed wish projection. everything in nyc is a bunch of people, so give it a minute -- nyc had just dropped the mandates. also masks are still required on all transit and private businesses can still require them, so people typically have their hands full and don't tend to pull them off instantly when they walk in and out. no worries -- rents are exploding and as exemplified by yourself and your own visit people are pouring back into the city. :shrug:

I'm not offended. Your take on it is dumb and you should be embarrassed for having said it out loud. People aren't wearing masks because of "anxiety" or "paranoia".

So then what you’re saying is that it is virtue signaling? That’s even worse than anxiety or paranoia.

I’m not embarrassed. If it’s that dumb you should move on, clearly, since you think you’re superior.