IN-PERSON London. Section B

Abstract

As downtowns throughout the U.S. and Canada have struggled to recover from the pandemic, many are eager to blame government directives that mandated distancing, closures, and quarantining. Yet, recent research has shown that the structure of the downtown economy, as well as the extent to which it functions as a vibrant, 24-7 urban centre, is far more important in shaping the ability of downtowns to come back (Florida, 2022; Leong et al., 2023). In this paper, we leverage location-based services extracted from mobile phones to assess recovery patterns across downtowns, building on the work of the University of Toronto School of Cities’ Downtown Recovery project (www.downtownrecovery.com). We find significant disparities in downtown recovery rates, with downtowns hosting a concentration of sectors with remote/hybrid work options—such as information, finance, professional services, and management—displaying sluggish recovery. Conversely, downtowns with a focus on industries like construction, manufacturing, accommodation, entertainment, health care, and education exhibited greater resilience post-pandemic. Lower-density and auto-oriented downtowns with a warm climate demonstrated a swift rebound, even surpassing pre-pandemic activity levels. Among the many government interventions, the most effective is ensuring downtown recovery were vaccinations, facial coverings, and worker income supports. However, the longer the closures of schools, workplaces, and transit, and the more restrictions on gatherings, the less likely downtowns were to rebound quickly. Our conclusions have implications for how governments might best restrict activity in the next pandemic and suggest the importance of diversifying land uses downtown.