Harris County (Houston) had 240 cases yesterday and we're up another 335 today. We're spiking but as long as our hospitals aren't overwhelmed, we're still on track to head into Phase III; Bars at 50% and restaurants at 75%. I still haven't been in one since early March.

Illinois now has more available ICU beds than before COVID. I bet we will see a big spike soon after all the non social distancing protests though .

DFW became the busiest airport in the world through this, but it's a bittersweet title.

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/...d-19-downturn/
DFW becomes the world’s busiest airport during COVID-19 downturn
Flights and passengers were down substantially at DFW in May, but not as much as other major airports.

By Kyle Arnold
3:58 PM on Jun 4, 2020

DFW International Airport was the world’s busiest airport in May, leaping ahead of other major travel hubs that have downsized during the COVID-19 pandemic.

DFW, still running a fraction of the flights it did a few months ago, operated 12,132 flights in May, far ahead of the No. 2 airport, Chicago O’Hare, according to aviation data company OAG. O’Hare, the biggest hub for Chicago-based United Airlines, had 8,596 flights, OAG said.

DFW has been the world’s third or fourth-largest airport for the last few years, serving more than 75 million passengers, or about 205,000 a day.

I haven't been to DFW in a few years--I assume it's a hub for a major airline or two?

I think American might have a couple of gates at DFW?

‘Frantic’ New Yorkers snatch up unwanted homes in the suburbs
By Michelle Sinclair Colman
June 4, 2020
https://nypost.com/2020/06/04/franti...n-the-suburbs/

^On the other hand, the NYC rental market may not be feeling as much pressure (yet) as feared. My friend was able to break his lease because the building still has people on a waitlist.

Putting aside the NY Post tabloid idiocy, the article completely misses the point.

Rich people in NYC are in their weekend homes, and those that didn't have one are renting one. NY is just different in that the wealthy tend to live in smaller apartments, and so are extremely likely to have weekend homes in proximity. If you're a rich family in, say, Chicago, DC, or SF, you're much less likely to need a nearby country house, because you probably already have space and grass.

Even in my non-wealthy neighborhood, half my neighbors are renting places in areas like the North Fork or the Berkshires. They don't have back yards and these places are comparatively cheap. You can buy five homes in the Berkshres for a two bedroom apartment in Park Slope. In the Upper East Side, many buildings are practically empty. It's like three months of Labor Day/Memorial Day weekends.

That doesn't have anything to do with an "urban exodus", but no one expects nuance from the Post.

This is kinda true of San Francisco too, just backwards in that the wealthy tend to use their SF apartments as their second home.

I could see that, though I still think most wealthy SF households, esp. with children, would live somewhere like Pacific Heights or Noe Valley, places with space and yards. In contrast, in NYC, places like Upper West Side and Brooklyn Heights typically have neither, so people typically have weekend homes.

Also, there's a huge price differential compared to Bay Area. A home in the Catskills might cost 10% of a primary home in Manhattan. You can get a lot of home in really scenic woods for 200-250k. A home in Marin isn't gonna cost 10% of a primary in SF.

Yeah, that's definitely true. Thanks for taking the time to reply to my post!

The Gold Coast, Lincoln Park, Lakeview, Bucktown, and South and West Loop all have affluent areas where families live in SFH with yards or townhouses with yards. That isn't the case in NYC.

So I doubt there are tons of wealthy Lincoln Park residents with a weekend house in Lake Forest or Barrington, but there are lots of wealthy UWS residents with a weekend house on the North Fork or CT.

no, there are not many (if any) at all.

what you will find is some wealthy lake forest or barrington residents who have a pied-a-terre down in the city (especially if they work in the loop), but their primary residence is their large suburban house.

lake forest and barrington are suburbia. wealthy chicagoans by and large don't "weekend" in suburbia. they go beyond suburbia to "get away from it all".

the lion's share of weekend homes for the wealthy in chicagoland are up in wisconsin or over in SW michigan. the big exception to this within the MSA is the chain o' lakes region in northern lake county IL (which is pretty damn close to the wisconsin border anyway).

Yeah, that's definitely true. Sorry, I wrote the part about Chicago without really thinking it through, so that's why it was deleted. ;)

for some anecdotal color, a friend and his family have thee known largest backyard in queens. its in astoria and its pretty unique. they have kids so at least they can get outside and work on the yard to get sun and air, which is a real luxury in this town.

wouldn't the houses with the largest backyards in queens be out in little neck?

in a neighborhood like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7710...7i16384!8i8192

^Yeah, how does someone have a large yard in Astoria? But there are plenty of houses on large-ish lots in outer Queens.

I know where the Berkshires are, but where's the North Fork?

Long Island... other side of Gardiners Bay from the Hamptons.

There is an old school theory among city planner that cities need to reserve enough land for future commercial and office space.

This usually results in low-density office parks, retail, and otherwise vacant land when there is a real need and demand for residential uses. The debate is still out if employers will cut back on office space needs post pandemic. I wonder if more cities will finally stop the strict segregation of commercial uses to allow more residential uses to be built.

https://i.imgur.com/ipuHF7h.jpg
https://cdn.archpaper.com/wp-content...-c-default.jpg

Both the developments above contain a similar amount of office space. The difference is the one on the bottom also contains close to 2,000 dwelling units and takes up 1/4th of the land.

I understand the need to provide a separation distance between residential and industrial or manufacturing uses. But the concept of a Central Business District or lands reserved for office space never made sense since developers can always build up to meet any demand.

There was a fair amount of older office buildings to residential space in lower Manhattan. It helped revitalize FiDi that was dead after hours or on weekends. I hope this trend continues in NYC and other cities. Planners really out to designate downtowns as mixed-use. I think cities in Australia and many progressive U.S. cities due this well, but it seems to be a foreign concept for many cities in the U.S. still.

Now if only planners allowed nursing homes to be built in residential neighborhoods and not in some far flung office park containing a bunch of warehouses. It's as if senior citizens that cannot live 100% independently are no longer part of a community and are relegated to the fringe of town. Another topic for another day about the sins of American's planning policies.

^ You’re oversimplifying, but yes the zoning regs are probably unnecessary in most cases. Office space is generally going to be the highest and best use anywhere that would have demand for office towers, and so by permitting it that’s what you get. Only allowing office space leads to vacant land where the demand doesn’t exist.

The office parks are a function of low land values and lack of planning prohibitions, and the problem with them is that real life isn’t SimCity and they don’t just “densify” later.

As for nursing homes, it depends on acuity. If it’s independent/assisted living then perhaps people are part of the community, but in a true nursing home the only community they’re a part of is the one inside the building. In a dementia wing they are not even allowed to come and go freely, for obvious reasons. The more important consideration for locating these things is access - can employees get to and from work, can families easily visit - so being near a highway is best. And to that point, remember that these are commercial facilities, with a lot of people coming and going. They aren’t appropriate for residential neighborhoods.

^ Chicago has plenty of smaller scale nursing homes and other types of senior housing tucked into its neighborhoods (as I'm sure many other cities do), so I'm not sure I follow what you're talking about.


Anyway, today we went to a small family gathering for my niece's sweet 16 up at my sister's house in far nothern exurbs of Chicagoland. As we were driving up there, my wife remarked "this feels so weird, all four of us in the car driving somewhere together".

She was right, we hadn't done that since early March. Then I realized it was the 1st time I was more than 10 miles from our home in roughly 3 months.

Weird indeed.

I think you’ll find that most are assisted living (lower acuity) and a lot are converted. It’s difficult to build new ones economically, because they tend to be at least 80-100 bed facilities in order to be profitable.

We also might have different things in mind when we say “residential neighborhood”. You can put a huge nursing facility in the Upper West Side or Lincoln Park because, while these are technically residential areas, they are very urban. You can’t put one on a side street in Wilmette, it needs to go over next to the Edens somewhere.

New York Gov. Cuomo speaks on coronavirus and George Floyd protests — 6/9/2020

• Video Link

i fully approve of this coronavoiding waste of time in cleveland lol —

— probably nsfw:

https://twitter.com/H_Ram/status/127...951399424?s=20

Updated June 5th, 2020

No New COVID-19 Reported Deaths on Wednesday

The city reported no new coronavirus deaths on Wednesday for the first time since March 12th. While we still have a long way to go in the fight against the virus, this is certainly a happy change from the 500+ daily fatalities the city faced in mid-April.

How is there not a thread on the protests/riots that have been ongoing for the past 2 weeks across the country? Maybe there is and I just can't find it? Just seems odd to come to a forum about cities and not see any mention of it at all...

Go to the Current Events forum in General Discussions - Skybar.

Ok, thanks. It still seems absurd to not have any discussion going in the City Discussion forum. Seems like intentional erasure of a very important topic. We can go on and on about COVID and how it might impact cities in the future, but we can't talk about the impacts of the largest civil rights demonstrations in 60 years? A global movement that seems to have gained some real footing and has potential to create real change isn't worthy of discussion in this highly visible portion of the forum? I mean, even immediate impacts- like the destruction of parts of Minneapolis- seem appropriate for this part of the forum.

:shrug:

It'd get real political, real fast and the moderators, to their credit, don't have a whole lot of tolerance for that outside of the Current Events subforum.

Hell, we can barely maintain rational discussions about most city issues in this subforum.

It can get political real fast hence why discussion of protests should go to CE. People have a hard time leaving political views out of any conversation. At least with COVID, it's a non political issue even if politicized but can me moderated easier.

Find an article about the riots damage and post it, I don't see why it wouldn't be allowed to stay.

Lots of city/urban related stuff discussed on here is highly political.

Food shortages are starting to show up at restaurants here. Beef and cold cuts are hard for fast food places to get.

But Italy and Spain have largely reopened, why would there be a shortage of prosciutto or iberico ham?

Really? That doesn't seem to be the case on my end of the continent.

I don't know, but I should ask the CEO's of Gwendolyn's and Le Métro because they are definitely dropping the ball. The next time I have my servants take me through the drive-thru, don't think I won't ask to speak to a manager.

There was a DJ out and a dance party in London Fields today. It was jam packed. People are so over social distancing here.

I can't wait for the massive increase in cases, followed by the inevitable jump in hospitalizations and finally deaths.

Sorry, but the thought of being in a jam-packed, crowded festival right now gives me the fucking creeps. I don't mind a decent-sized group, but I'd say personal space is something we should all be thankful for in this day and age.

Exactly why restaurants are not likely to be packed full any time soon. Exactly why bars, even when opened up, aren't likely to be full. Same reason why concerts and amusement parks and sporting events aren't likely to be anywhere near capacity in the near to mid-future.


Aaron (Glowrock)

Half full restaurants don’t work. They need to be able to operate normally, and soon. The hypochondriacs can stay home, and if the ones that rely on an older clientele fail that’s also fine.

Your first statement is correct, your second statement is false. If even 10%-20% of consumers continue to stay at home (don't go to restaurants, take vacations, etc) we will be in a steep recession.

Even if they were open at full capacity, people are staying at home on their own. Businesses are failing left and right because foot traffic is low.

We've been enjoying outdoor eating at restaurants here, or takeout in the park. I'm hoping case numbers don't skyrocket again soon, but we'll see.

Three months in and there's one certainty: The UK and US public is often clueless about the most basic points...starting with geometric expansion of cases and each person's role in that.

Or the most basic point imaginable...we have 160,000 deaths in the UK+US but we DON'T have multiples of that...because we've shut down.

There's also a strong entitlement culture in both countries.

The restaurants that I care about would be full to capacity if only they were allowed to do so.

Personal freedoms are important in both countries.

Italy, France and Spain had stricter shutdowns but are now pretty much wide open. I’m going to Italy in a couple weeks, and then plan to spend August in France.

Stricter and now more wide open....does this not spur a thought about why they can open up?

A few states in the south (Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama) seem to be heading towards a level of outbreak that risks overwhelming those states health care infrastructure. It's hard to imagine that these states will just let this burn, but that seems to be the stance on it right now.

In general, it seems like the South/West are trending badly right now, while the Northeast/Midwest continue to trend downward. It's really not clear what is causing this regional difference.

Really? NE/Midwest were (and still are, to a great extent) still shut down, while South/West (excluding Pacific) were never totally shut down and opened much earlier. Also, the virus already burned through the hardest hit areas. The sickest people in the worst affected areas are already dead.

I mean, in the Northeast Corridor, basically everything is still shut down, and I can't remember the last time I saw someone not wearing a mask indoors. In contrast, my parents are in Florida, and they say no one is wearing a mask indoors anywhere, really. They're in Naples, and say it's as if the pandemic never existed. Also doesn't help that they're in a conservative, elderly, white bubble of retired Midwesterners who tend to lean strongly Trump.

It doesn’t matter. There are clusters popping up in Rome, Milan, and other places. China had the strictest possible lockdown (much stricter than could ever be implemented in the West), and there are cases showing up again now in Beijing.

No lockdown or adherence to any of these restrictions can eliminate the virus. It will be with us forever, but will mutate as it spreads through the population (most likely to become less deadly to its hosts).

The lockdowns had a viable purpose in preventing a capacity overload in the healthcare system, but we aren’t close to that now, so we just have to get on with it and let it spread, and more vulnerable people should act accordingly.