Article Urban Link

Cities and Contagion: Lessons from COVID-19

April 17, 2020

Authors Elijah Anderson , David Barnes , Eugénie L. Birch , Dennis Culhane , Jessie Handbury , Carolyn Kousky , James Kwame Mensah , Laura Perna , Mauricio Rodas , Megan Ryerson , David Arthur Skeel , Eugenia (Gina) South , Frederick Steiner , Richard Voith , Susan Wachter , Mark Zandi

Current Themes

Urban Development

As many have observed, cities are humankind’s earliest inventions; they have endured through war, pestilence, and depressions. They will persist into the future, though will certainly experience changes in response to the current shock.

That cities are at the frontline of today’s pandemic is not surprising. Their density makes them hotspots of the disease. Urban lockdowns will result in national GDP declines. Urban disparities, ranging from health to the digital divide to unemployment rates, are now in the spotlight. Penn IUR Fellows, Faculty Fellows, Scholars, and associates, whose contributions are below, have much to share as they reflect on COVID-19’s effects on cities and their populations yesterday and today. Taken together, their contributions demonstrate the importance of Penn’s commitment to integrating knowledge across disciplines as we hear about their research and actions in health, the humanities, social science, design, business, and education.

This issue of Urban Link inaugurates Penn IUR’s Cities and Contagion: Lessons from COVID-19 initiative. The initiative, which will include future issues of Urban Link, brings together experts across scholarly disciplines who can help interpret the pandemic’s implications for urbanization and the subsequent responses to its human and economic dimensions—work that will inform public and private decision-makers as they adapt cities to be more resilient, inclusive, and innovative. The Cities and Contagion initiative will have four parts: publications, a web-based resource library, convenings (both online and, when appropriate, in person) and research projects.

We invite you, our readers, to contribute your ideas on how cities of the future will look and function—we will publish a selection of them in the future. Please send your thoughts to cgriffin@upenn.edu.