Monitoring Recovery in Real Time

Recovering New York City: A One Year Look Back on the Penn IUR Recovering Cities Project, and a Look Forward towards Recovery, is the report of Penn IUR’s “Recovering Cities Project,” a year-long effort that focused on New York City, the original epicenter of the pandemic in the United States. The project grew out of Penn IUR’s interest in resilience, a research area that began with publication of Penn IUR Co-Directors Eugénie Birch and Susan Wachter’s Rebuilding Urban Places After Disaster, Lessons from Katrina (2006). Led by Penn IUR Advisory Board member, Bill Lukashok, Penn IUR Post-Doctoral Fellow Chandan Deuskar, and Birch, the New York effort assembled a small but influential group of the City’s leaders drawn from the public, private, and non-governmental sectors. Starting in September 2020, they monitored the situation in real time.

The participants met bi-monthly, crafted the Penn IUR New York City Recovery Dashboard (a set of indicators that tracked health, fiscal conditions, employment, public transport use, crime, residential and commercial real estate markets, park usage, retail, arts and culture, and foot traffic, available on the Penn IUR website) and invited experts to provide insights on key concerns. Included were urban historian Kenneth Jackson who reflected on the Big Apple’s revival after such repeated and various crises as disease, fire, riots, and hurricanes for nearly 250 years; Fred Dixon, President and CEO, NYC & Company, the 2,000-member official destination marketing organization and convention and visitors bureau for the five boroughs of New York City who outlined measures to regain the 67 million tourists, a major contributor to the city’s economic base; Jennifer Raab, President, Hunter College/CUNY, who discussed online learning; Kathy Wylde, President and CEO, New York City Partnerships, who spoke on employment and job losses; Thomas Wright, President, Regional Plan Association, who discussed issues with public transportation; and others.

The project directors document this living history in the Recovering New York City report. They present the health conditions early in the pandemic, monitor the ups and downs of health and socioeconomic conditions in the city over the year, and take stock of the group’s continuing concerns for the future. They note in their conclusion that “The experts convened by Penn IUR remain cautiously optimistic that the city will rebound, but also aware that plenty of work needs to be done to ensure that this happens.”

Penn IUR undertook the Recovering Cities project to study the dynamics of recovery and to inform public and private decision-makers as they adapt the post-pandemic urban environment to be more resilient, inclusive, and innovative.