Month: April 2020
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The state of the pandemic by metro area
Updated April 29 with data through April 28. In geographic terms, the Corona Virus has become the Northeast Corridor Virus: NE Corridor metros account for 6 of the 8 hardest hit large metros, and have 6 of the 8 highest rates of reported new cases per capita. Among the 53 metro areas with a million…
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The Week Observed, April 24, 2020
What City Observatory this week 1. What the Covid-19 Shutdown teaches us about freeways. Everyone knows that speeds are up on urban roadways around the nation because of the stay-at-home orders to fight the pandemic. But there’s a hidden lesson here. In Portland, for example, one of the most regularly congested roadways is not only…
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What Covid-19 teaches us about how to fix freeways
Limiting demand actually makes freeways work better Portland’s I-5 North freeway now carries more cars, faster at the peak hour than it did prior to the pandemic. Average speeds on I-5 between the Marquam and Interstate Bridges between 4:30 and 5:30 have doubled to more than 55 miles per hour–and the road is carrying about…
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Why suburbs aren’t safer from the pandemic than cities
Whether you live in a city its suburbs, your metro area is the biggest geographic factor in variations in Covid-19 rates Suburban incidence is lower, but there’s about a six-day difference between the reported rate of Covid-19 cases per capita between a city and its suburbs. About 40 percent of suburbs of large metro areas…
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Is Covid-19 the end of cities? (Spoiler: No.)
The New York Times tells us that cities were “losing their allure” before the Covid-19 pandemic, and that now people are preparing to flee urban areas. Sure, cities had a bit of a resurgence after 2000, But by the mid-2010s, the growth slowed. Big cities had become expensive, with rents far out of the range…
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Density is not Destiny: Covid in Cascadia
One of the densest cities in North America has recorded relatively few Covid-19 cases. There’s a popular theory going around–unfortunately being propagated by the Governor of New York–that somehow density is to blame for the spread of Covid-19. There’s little question that New York is the epicenter of the pandemic (pandemicenter?) and it is, famously,…
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The Covid Corridor: The pandemic is worst in the NE Corridor
The incidence of reported Covid-19 cases, and their daily growth is higher in the metros of NE corridor than the rest of the country. The Northeast Corridor has all four of the cities with the highest rate of newly reported cases. New Cases per 100,000 population, April 17 A new metric: New cases per 100,000…
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The Week Observed, April 17, 2020
What City Observatory this week 1. Regional Patterns of Covid-19 Incidence. The pandemic has struck every corner of the nation, but has clearly hit some areas harder than others. We’ve focused on those metro areas, like New Orleans and New York, that have the highest rates of reported cases per 100,000 population. But stepping back…
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A Note on Covid-19 Case Data
Reported case data correlate strongly with Covid-19 deaths, and provide a reasonable basis for assessing the geographic pattern of the pandemic across US metro areas. A critical question in judging the state of the Covid-19 pandemic is understanding how many people have the virus, and how fast it is spreading. Because of a shortage of…
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Regional Pandemic Hotspots: NE Corridor and Great Lakes
Originally published April 12; Revised and Corrected April 14 The Covid-19 pandemic is hitting two regions in the US much harder than others: The NE Corridor and the Great Lakes Metro areas in these regions have the highest rates of reported cases per capita, and the highest levels of growth In contrast, incidence and growth…
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The Week Observed, April 10, 2020
What City Observatory this week 1. What cities are showing us about the progression of the Covid-19 pandemic. In an important sense, each large US metro area is a separate test case of the path of the Covid-19 virus. By observing the path of the pandemic in different cities, we can get a sense of…
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Covid-19 Prevalence by Metro Area (April 17 data)
REVISED April 18; Data through April 17, 2020 Among the 53 metro areas with a million or more population: New York, New Orleans, Detroit, Boston and Philadelphia have the highest incidence of pandemic among large metros. The rate of growth in new cases in New York, New Orleans, and Detroit has declined to less than…
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Who’s flattening the curve? Evidence from Seattle & San Jose
Seattle and San Jose had the first outbreaks of Covid-19 but now have the slowest rates of growth of any large US metro area Their progress seems closely related to the fact that they’ve cut back on travel more than nearly every other metro area. For the past several weeks, City Observatory has been compiling…
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Staying at home: Estimates for large metro areas
How well are “stay at home” and “shelter in place” policies working in different metro areas? “Big data” from smartphones gives us a picture of how we’re dialing back on travel in response to “stay-at-home” orders to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. We’ve compiled the data from Google and Cuebiq on the variations in travel behavior in…
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What cities tell us about the trajectory of the pandemic
Each metro area represents a different instance of the Covid-19 pandemic; we can use the varied experiences and timing of the virus in each metro area to better understand where we’re headed. Seattle is 10 days to 2 weeks ahead of the rest of the country and signals our possible future trajectory Growth rates are…
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Covid-19 Prevalence by Metro Area (April 8 data)
SUPERSEDED: Please see latest data here. Original post below is for archival purposes. REVISED April 9; Data through April 8, 2020 Among the 53 metro areas with a million or more population: The situation in New Orleans is the worst of any large metro area: Its rate of reported cases is now 50 percent higher…
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Covid-19 Prevalence by Metro Area (April 2 data)
UPDATED April 3, 2020 Among the 53 metro areas with a million or more population: New Orleans, New York, Detroit, Boston and Seattle have the highest incidence of pandemic among large metros. New Orleans rate of reported cases has surged past New York; Seattle’s rate of new cases has declined to the lowest level among…
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Anatomy of a rental marketplace
A new report from the DC Policy Center shows the inner-workings of the shadow rental market that is a key to housing affordability Too often, our debates about housing policy are shaped by inaccurate pictures of how the housing market really works. A new report from the D.C. Policy Center provides a remarkably clear and…
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The Week Observed, April 3, 2020
What City Observatory this week 1. Counting Covid- Cases in US Metro Areas. We’ve been updating our metro area tabulations of the number of reported Covid-19 cases on a daily basis. You can find our latest tabulations here. There’s a mixture of positive and negative developments. Seattle, the metro first hit hard by the pandemic,…
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Covid-19 Prevalence by Metro Area (April 1 data)
NOTE: This post has been superseded with more recent data: click here. Among the 53 metro areas with a million or more population: New York, New Orleans, Detroit, Boston and Seattle have the highest incidence of pandemic among large metros. Seattle’s rate of new cases has declined to the lowest level among large metro areas;…
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Covid-19 Prevalence by Metro Area (March 31 data)
UPDATED April 1, 2020 Among the 53 metro areas with a million or more population: New York, New Orleans, Detroit, Seattle and Boston have the highest incidence of pandemic among large metros. Seattle’s rate of new cases has declined to the lowest level among large metro areas; Boston’s cases per 100,000 are nearly equal to…