Cities offer opportunity, diversity, and economies of scale, which ultimately attract more residents and retroactively drive their growth. Despite decades of predictions foretelling the demise of cities due to the telephone, the internet, videoconferencing, or virtual reality, cities and face-to-face interactions continue to grow. Large urban areas continue to draw more and more people. Driven by more than just tourism, the travel industry has also grown year after year, demonstrating how much people want to be physically present where things are happening—whether for meetings, events, concerts, or simply to gather with friends and family.
In recent weeks, this concept has seemingly been called into question. Dense, interactive, and connected, major cities appear to be the perfect breeding ground for the rapid spread of epidemics or pandemics like COVID-19. Addressing urban viral outbreaks, the Red Cross notes that, “as actors in these epidemics, urban environments play a dual role in aiding transmission and subsequently hindering the response to it.” Although a recent COVID-19 report by Rio Grande do Sul's Department of Economics and Statistics stated that “population density does not seem to affect the virus's rate of expansion,” the comparison was made between countries, not cities. Studying the effect of population density on epidemics, authors Li, Richmond, and Roehner concluded that population density can indeed affect the intensity of transmission and mortality rates for epidemics like influenza and pneumonia.
