Will there be a “Post-Pandemic City”?

Join the Department of Social Sciences for this Great Problems, Great Minds seminar series event featuring guest speaker Helen Couclelis, a professor of geography emerita at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The notion of the "Post-Pandemic City" has recently been appearing in academic discussions, publications, and conference titles, most often expressing the idea that tomorrow’s cities will be different from their familiar forms, changed by the disruption to urban life and global networks brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, and by the technological and other means put in place to counter these disruptions. Couclelis presents arguments from both sides. On the one hand, cities will have to adapt to many COVID-19-related changes in our daily lives that are likely to become permanent. On the other hand, history shows and urban studies confirm that cities are too resilient to be changed by a temporary calamity such as a pandemic. Following the talk, there will be time for a general discussion of whether or not there will be a "Post-Pandemic City" – or perhaps something in-between.