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Big Cities | Munk Debates

EPISODE #35

Big Cities

Be it resolved, COVID-19 and its social and economic fall out spells the end of the big city boom.

Guests
Joel Kotkin
Richard Florida
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About this episode

The COVID-19 pandemic has swept across the globe, but it’s our cities that have felt the greatest impact. Research shows that 95% of people infected with the virus live in urban areas. Supporters of big city living say people have been too quick to blame density as the culprit behind contagion. They say the pandemic offers us the chance to address the more complex issues that drive infection to build a new generation of inclusive cities where everybody want to live. Critics of big cities say the pandemic has exposed the flaws in contemporary urban planning which have emphasized the virtues of density and mass transit at the expense of safety and people’s lives. They argue that as our hyperconnected world moves into an era of ongoing pandemics, de-densification is the only way to go.

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Guests

Joel Kotkin

"The biggest challenge for cities will be the exodus of jobs because of remote work. Cities are going to be competing with the suburbs for talent."

Joel Kotkin

"The biggest challenge for cities will be the exodus of jobs because of remote work. Cities are going to be competing with the suburbs for talent."

Described by the New York Times as “America’s uber-geographer,” Joel Kotkin is an internationally-recognized authority on global, economic, political and social trends. His work over the past decade has focused on inequality and class mobility as well as how regions can address these pressing issues.
 
Mr. Kotkin is the Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University in Orange, California and Executive Director of the Houston-based Urban Reform Institute. He is Senior Fellow for Heartland Forward and Executive Editor of the widely read website NewGeography.com. He is a regular contributor to the City Journal, Daily Beast, Quillette and Real Clear Politics.
 
Kotkin recently completed several studies including on Texas urbanism, the future of localism, the changing role of transit in America, and, most recently, California’s lurch towards feudalism.
 
His next book, The Coming of Neo Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class, deals with the issue of declining upward mobility and growing inequality in almost all middle and high-income countries. Kotkin is also the author of eight previous books, including The Human City: Urbanism for the Rest of Us and the widely praised The New Class Conflict, which describes the changing dynamics of class in America. He is co-editor of the 2018 collection Infinite Suburbia.
 
Over the past decade, Mr. Kotkin has completed studies focusing on several major cities, including a worldwide study for the UK-based Legatum Institute on the future of London, Mumbai and Mexico City, and in 2010 completed an international study on “the new world order,” also for Legatum, that traced trans-national ethnic networks, particularly in East Asia. He has also done studies of New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Houston, San Bernardino, and St. Louis, among others.

Richard Florida

"Cities have survived much worse than this pandemic, but COVID-19 is a wake up call for us to rebuild our cities in ways that are more equitable, more inclusive, and that support middle-class families."

Richard Florida

"Cities have survived much worse than this pandemic, but COVID-19 is a wake up call for us to rebuild our cities in ways that are more equitable, more inclusive, and that support middle-class families."

Richard Florida is one of the world’s leading urbanists.
 
He is a researcher and professor, serving as University Professor at University of Toronto’s School of Cities and Rotman School of Management, and a Distinguished Fellow at NYU’s Schack School of Real Estate.
 
He is a writer and journalist, having penned several global bestsellers, including the award winning The Rise of the Creative Class and his most recent book, The New Urban Crisis. He is co-founder of CityLab, the leading publication devoted to cities and urbanism.

Show Notes

Joel Kotkin has recently published The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. In this book Kotkin argues that tech oligarchs are wiping out the middle class and turning some cities into luxury enclaves. During the debate Joel Kotkin also refers to his book The City: A Global History.
 
Richard Florida is renowned for his best-selling book The Rise of the Creative Class in which he describes the new social class of creative workers and the vital role they play in the economy and in transforming cities into vibrant places to live. In The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class-and What We Can Do About It Richard Florida looks at the dark side of the creative economy.
 
Richard Florida says that he was born during a pandemic that killed 100,000 Americans. He is referring to the Asian Flu Pandemic of 1957, which first appeared in southwestern China. This pandemic caused approximately 1-2 million deaths worldwide.
 
During the debate both Richard and Joel describe how COVID-19 has exposed racial and class divisions within cities. To learn more about how COVID-19 has differently impacted “density disparities” within a city read Jay Pitter’s article in Azure.
 
During the debate Richard and Joel discussed the massive challenge the pandemic poses for public transit. Richard referred to a draft research paper by MIT professor Jeffrey Harris that argues that the New York subway system was a major disseminator of the virus. You can read the research paper here. Richard also referred to critiques of the research paper, which include references to the low infection rates in other high-transit cities around the world.
 
Richard and Joel both referred to the polarization between cities and rural areas in the U.S.  You can learn about the growing urban rural divide in Canada here.
 
In his closing remarks Joel suggested that Singapore, like Toronto, has lessons to share on the development of successful cities. In an interview former Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew discussed some of the key principles that guided the development of Singapore, including “a level playing field for all.”

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