The pandemic can be a net positive for all American cities
Recently I’ve seen a collection of headlines about how “America’s superstar cities are in trouble” because the pandemic has required so many people to do their jobs remotely, which means that a substantial portion of the nation’s workforce can now essentially live wherever they want, in many cases leaving behind pricey coastal metropolises.
I fail to see how that’s ultimately a bad thing for anyone, or anywhere.
First of all, I despise the term “superstar city.” At least in America, there’s no such thing. Sure, the rich, powerful, and privileged can live cushy lives in our nation’s biggest urban centers. But sadly we remain a society that has maliciously chosen to not provide for the basic needs of its most vulnerable members or even its middle class, nor to invest in the services and infrastructure on which they depend for survival and advancement. In that respect, we’re no different than a failed state. Sorry, but it’s true, whether we’re talking Manhattan, New York, or Manhattan, Kansas.
What’s the value of having to pay top dollar to live in a tiny, outdated apartment near a crumbling subway station when even if you do, you’re still living in a country that is virtually unique on the international stage in its failure to provide fundamentals like health care coverage or even one single day of guaranteed paid sick leave? What’s the point of buying a cookie-cutter, exurban house you can actually afford that’s a two-hour commute from your office, where driving is your only choice because American public transit is a joke?
What exactly is “super” about any of that? Am I missing something?
Moving on from my soapbox—but still related to it—I suppose the reason cities like New York and San Francisco are still called “superstars” is because they have a lot of jobs. I guess it’s a valid point, or at least it might have been in 1990. Today there’s this nifty tool catching on called the internet, which gives lots of workers (myself included) the ability to do their jobs from anywhere on the planet that has reliable high-speed bandwidth.
Sure, there are lots of professions where this still isn’t and will never be an option. A doctor can’t perform surgery over a Zoom call; a barber or bartender can’t cut hair or serve a draft beer using Microsoft Teams; a police officer, firefighter, or paramedic can’t respond to life-threatening emergencies via Slack. So even remote working itself is a question of privilege in a very real sense.
Nevertheless, there are lots of other vocations where working remotely isn’t just a nice-to-have; in many cases, it might actually be a far better idea than dragging yourself to a physical office every day. Setting aside the environmental, economical, logistical, and quality-of-life arguments against forcing people to commute every single day, there are many who simply don’t want to live in an overcrowded, overpriced, and overrated city just to have a certain job. And in the year 2021, why should they have to?
Up until very recently, the answer to that was merely a matter of how things were always done. For the most part, it used to be a given that workers should congregate together in the same physical locations, face to face, every single day. Through their personnel policies, many employers implied that the job couldn’t be done any other way—not because that’s actually true, but simply because it was precedent.
Obviously, a once-in-a-century global pandemic has laid waste to that notion. I suspect this will be the new normal. I certainly hope so. Why?
Despite their identities as the iconic urban centers of a nation in decline, America’s so-called “superstar” cities have become mostly unaffordable to all except the elite in large part due to housing shortages. With the highly educated and highly skilled flocking to those places in droves to take white-collar, well-paid jobs they’d never be able to find in cities like Tulsa or Memphis, the poor and working class have been squeezed out in ways that tragically exemplify our society’s descent into unmitigated oligarchy.
The dynamic is even reflected in our electoral maps these days. Look at the deep blue color that dominates American metropolitan areas where there’s tons of upward mobility: Seattle. San Francisco. Denver. Chicago. New York. Boston. Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia. Atlanta (which unexpectedly helped carry Georgia for Biden last fall). Contrast that with the vast number of economically stagnant or declining regions that have embraced Donald Trump’s brand of resentment politics and thus have turned blood red (if they weren’t always that way). This would be places like rural Ohio; pretty much anywhere in Idaho outside of Boise’s downtown core; or almost anywhere in Tennessee save Nashville, a hip city de jour.
Do you wonder how America can be so culturally and politically polarized? Well, there’s a clue for you.
But now that it’s clear that a tech worker doesn’t necessarily have to move to or stay in Silicon Valley just to be part of the next cutting-edge startup, or that a young, penniless MBA doesn’t have to settle for $1,700 rent for a cramped apartment with multiple roommates and no in-unit laundry in Manhattan, there’s at least a chance to start restoring some balance. To be sure, it won’t begin to address the myriad problems I’ve already laid out, but at least it’s a start, and it certainly won’t hurt.
If young or even middle-aged professionals would rather ditch their coastal origins to buy or rent a nicer home and an easier life in a city like Omaha, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Detroit, or Cincinnati, and if it’s clear that they can effectively perform their jobs from those places, then such moves should be encouraged and embraced. Unlike so many coastal metros, those locales aren’t completely oversaturated and, to the contrary, stand to benefit mightily from the human capital of such a demographic.
The corollary to this, of course, is reduced pressure on the so-called “superstars.” I mentioned above that there are and will always be a lot of jobs that can’t be done remotely. To that end, and in light of recent events, think of your typical law enforcement officer in a metro like Washington, D.C., and think of how hard it must be for such a civil servant to be able to actually afford housing in the city they serve. (Many or most already cannot.) Then think of the difference that might be made for them if even a small number of white-collar workers decided they didn’t need to move to D.C. for their next big career move, or if even a small number decided they didn’t need to stay in a city that’s so outrageously overpriced when they can keep the job they have and move to, say, Des Moines.
Under this new paradigm, numerous population groups and geographical regions stand to benefit. It’s a win-win situation. Let the people whose jobs permit them to work remotely do so, to make more room in oversaturated cities for those who cannot.
But what of the argument that “superstar cities are in trouble”? I think the “trouble” is largely a reference to the loss of revenue from taxes, transit fare, or patronage of local businesses caused by workers who are fleeing those places in the era of COVID-19.
To be blunt, I’m not worried. Sure, times might be a little tough for a little while in those places. But here’s the reality: Many people are always going to want to live in New York no matter what, simply because it’s New York. (New York has certainly been in the gutter before, and it recovered.) San Francisco and Seattle will never want for newcomers, at least not until the next Big One strikes or Mount Rainier erupts. The coastal “superstars” will never be permanently destitute, at least not at the hands of any single economic or social trend. In the long run they’ll be just fine; they always have been.
And what about the possibility that this trend is simply going to squeeze out the poor and working class in all kinds of new cities like it already has done in places like the Bay Area? Sure, sadly that’s going to happen to some extent, and the data suggest it already is. But again, this is not about solving our enormous problems of inequality and injustice so much as it is simply restoring balance. For far too long, America’s economy has been far too dependent on a small handful of powerhouse cities while large swaths of the rest of the country have languished. Not that I’m defending it in any way, but again, if you wonder where the seeds of resentment politics might lie, here you go.
In the age of constant connectivity and accessibility made possible by technology, it shouldn’t be that way — and as the circumstances of the past year have taught, it doesn’t have to be.
People who want to live and work in an expensive, trendy coastal city like Boston should be able to do so. But if you’d rather live in Albuquerque or Duluth, you should be able to have just as good a job there. Both walks of life — and both kinds of cities — can benefit from the idea of remote working. If there’s any silver lining to this horrible pandemic, I hope it’s the long-term enshrinement of that mentality.
