What It Will Take to Reopen Cities, with Richard Florida

Though most California cities are still operating under a state-led shelter-in-place mandate, cities across the country are beginning to test the waters by reopening the portions of their economies that had previously been shuttered to limit the spread of COVID-19. But with several Asian cities, including Hong Kong and Singapore, having experienced second waves of the pandemic since their initial attempts to return to normalcy, similar outcomes are all but guaranteed in the United States. How can we determine a safe time to reopen our cities and what will they look like in a post-pandemic society? Is the coronavirus the downfall of density, or can cities around the world remain bastions of urbanism in the face of the disease? Join renowned urbanist Richard Florida for a discussion about the fraught connection between the pandemic and cities and what we can expect in the coming months and years.

+ Richard Florida / University Professor at University of Toronto’s School of Cities and Rotman School of Management, Distinguished Fellow at NYU and FIU, and Co-Founder and Senior Editor, The Atlantic City Lab.