People are scrambling to get out of New York, after infection rates have increased, and Rodeway, one of the local carriers, has reported that urban residents, most affected by New York City by the outbreak of the coronavirus, are being displaced from it unprecedentedly. The president of a transport company that has been working in the city since 2008 says people are moving from Manhattan in numbers he had never seen before.
"It is crazy ... I've never seen such displacement before, compared to any other season when displacement from the city is rising," says Rodeway company president Ross Sapir. On some days, his company is seeing a 200% increase in communications over transportation requests. Its clients consist largely of highly wealthy people, usually between the ages of 25 and 45, and well-off professionals in Manhattan.
Expectations of the city's death
Mass migration was most evident in New York City, when an estimated 5% of the population left their homes for some time, some of the oldest residents went to their vacation homes, while others went to live with their extended families in the suburbs. Soon some people began to expect the death of some of America's largest cities, as it did not seem that a city had a coherent plan to make public transportation safe for passengers. It seemed that bars and restaurants would not return to normal for months, perhaps for years, and some would be permanently closed. There was also no plan to reopen schools. All those who left for the suburbs for their safety will remain there for some time, and those with high incomes will follow them. Over the past few weeks, as protesters have been subjected to tear gas and rubber bullets in cities all over the country, some have begun to expect more momentum migration.
Young people joined the rich to escape from New York to the suburbs, after the city closed to itself due to the coronavirus, and many professionals reexamined life inside the city, when some companies began permitting their employees to work permanently from home. At a time when the virus «Covid-19» dominated the country, since mid-March, residents of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city fled, while many young people sought refuge in the suburbs to stay with their parents. Some were forced to terminate the rental contracts and return to their hometowns, because they were unable to bear the high rental rates in the city, after losing their jobs, while others continued to pay for their apartments in the city while they were seeking refuge elsewhere.
Sad to separate her cradle of childhood
Chloe Davis has lived almost her entire life in New York City. Her parents moved from Liverpool, England, to the city's upper eastern side, when she was four. As a teenager, she fell in love with the art scene in Lower Manhattan. "New York was a magical city in the early 1990s. There were a lot of opportunities," she says. She and her husband Jeremy now live in the same place where she had previously lived in the city, and they never planned to leave even after the birth of their children. "We loved our life, and we walk in the city side. I know almost everyone in the neighborhood."
But when New York City became the epicenter of a coronavirus outbreak in March, Davis found herself trapped inside a two-bedroom apartment with her husband and three young children. She said that the last 50 days were one of the worst days in their lives. Her 10-year-old son had been in a state of collapse weeks ago, because he wanted to get out of the apartment, and he couldn't. The three boys asked if they could move to another home. And she said, "I realized that I can't do anything about it."
Davis recently joined a group on Facebook that includes 1,000 women who want to leave New York City with their families due to the epidemic, and have been searching for a home in Connecticut, or Westchester County.
Manhattan is a ghost town
A year before this modern plague invaded the regions of the world, the Hudson Yards condominium in Manhattan held an opening ceremony that was packed with food, chefs and dignitaries, decorations and other barges, befitting such a wonderful city.
But a few months ago the epidemic broke out, and Hudson Yards became a ghost town, its shopping center has been closed, and its tenant, Neiman Marcus, will soon go bankrupt. And the restaurants in this place, which were usually crowded with tourists, are empty except by a security guard who watches the place from time to time.
The only movement in that area was the movement of soldiers treating "Covid-19" patients at the field hospital that was hurriedly set up at the nearby convention center, and near it a number of people lined up to take their share of free meals, which was distributed at the front of the Hudson Yards store, which was done Turning them into a kitchen to prepare soup, and next to them delivery drivers, postal workers, office cleaners, and others who run the front lines in the fight against coronavirus are lined up in New York City.
This picture greatly reflects how this virus has transformed New York City, which, in just weeks, has probably suffered more deaths than any other city in the world. With the city approaching reopening, New Yorkers fearfully think of how their city will emerge from the epidemic, and what kind of future awaits them.
New York, unlike other major US cities, embodies the urban characteristics that the virus has transformed into vulnerabilities: population density, rising cost of living, retail dependence, culture and tourism, and reliance on crowded public transportation.
There is no quick fix
On the other hand, uncertainty prevails over the return of life to the city as it was before the epidemic, even among the most enthusiastic about her return to her first life. Many suffer a disturbing feeling that this time is completely different from other times. "This time is much more complicated than before," says director of the charity fund, which was created after the September 11 terrorist attack, and she goes on to say, "I think the disaster will have deeper and longer-lasting effects."
In fact, the terrorist activities of September 11th were brutal and devastating, but the world gathered around the city to resume its economy within days. After 2008, New York City ended up taking advantage of the policies that poured large sums of cash into the financial system. But with the coronavirus, no quick fix is in sight. City slides crowded with more than 21,000 deaths - nearly eight times the city's toll from the September 11 attacks - and some expect unemployment to rise to 20% in June. Worst of all, New York City's population density makes it vulnerable to the epidemic.
Belonging to a place is no longer important
The majority intends to return, at the end of the closure period, but the economic impact of the epidemic, as well as the shift to remote work, may cause some people to abandon the city forever. These visions, which resemble an urban ice age, are coupled with another vision that office work will not require personal presence in the office. And employers have had to yield to reality, and now find themselves under pressure to keep this option available, even after states begin to reopen their economies. It is worth noting that "Google", "Facebook" and "Twitter" extended work from home to their employees until 2021, or maybe they resorted to making this option sustainable.
Before the epidemic, the research group «Global Workplace Analytics» estimated that only 3.6% of the American workforce had been working at home for at least half the time. Finally, the group expected that 30% of the workforce would work from home several days a week, by the end of 2021. This means that employees may not need to live in the city where their company is located.
Cleansing efforts
For more safety, there is an emerging consensus that the authorities must create a sense of safety, as they did after 9/11. Otherwise, it will be impossible to restore business, not to mention the return of tourists. If there is no vaccine, New York State Governor Andrew Como has turned to former Mayor Michael Bloomberg to lead a test and tracking system.
A history of disasters
The recent history of New York City is plagued by periodic disasters, which have caused mass migration to other cities that are less expensive, safer, and more convenient. The city witnessed the financial crisis of the 1970s, the ensuing collapse, and the stock market crash in 1987; The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001; And the financial crisis of 2008, not to mention hurricanes, floods and blackouts.
However, in each of the previous cases, New York demonstrated the mistake of the pessimists. The city returned stronger than it was before, in other words, it reinvented itself. After the events of September 11, for example, the city center became more active, and the Hudson Yards, a $ 25 billion project, is the largest real estate project in North America. After 2008, the city became a technical center competing with Silicon Valley, and its magnetic attraction was strengthened by a new generation of talent. "Nobody comes to work in New York because it is cheaper or easier, no, it just comes to it because talent is here," says Mary Ann Tiggie, CEO of Tri-City Aria Real Estate Group. A veteran city government official, Carl Weissbrod, who led efforts to revive the Times Square in the late 1980s and who was recently appointed to a new task force to guide the city's recovery, admits that the next 18 months will be difficult. But he concludes that, "as long as New York sticks to its talents, it is doubtful that it will recover, economically." Other civilian leaders are looking to repeat the New York recovery. Some are even talking about a unique opportunity to reimagine the city, remove troublesome regulations that have been created for generations, attract new industries, and correct the social inequalities exposed by the crisis.
New York, unlike other major US cities, embodies the urban characteristics that the virus has transformed into vulnerabilities: population density, rising cost of living, retail dependence, culture and tourism, and reliance on crowded public transportation.
The majority of New Yorkers intend to return, at the end of the closure period, but the economic impact of the epidemic, as well as the shift to telework, may cause some people to abandon the city forever. These visions, which resemble an urban ice age, are coupled with another vision that office work will not require personal presence in the office. And employers had to bow to reality, and now found themselves under pressure to keep this option, even after states reopened their economies.