Are People Moving To Remote Cities With Less COVID-19 cases?
What major happened in 2020
Every year we come across new trends, technologies, and events that are disparate and major from previous years, such as the Amazon forest burning, protests on the streets, and North Korea-U.S. Nuclear Talks Stall in 2019. As per the New York Times, “the 80,000 fires set in 2019 were the most in a decade, and they burned an area about the size of New Jersey.”
However, 2019 is in past and 2020 brought something much worse with it. The COVID-19 pandemic started from the city of Wuhan in China; spread throughout the globe at such a rate that now it has reached a total of 22,077,423 positive cases with 778,071 deaths.
Coronavirus outbreak is making everyone stay behind the doors with a social distance to be maintained at all times. Due to the lockdown held in most of the countries, many people started returning to their hometowns with others leaving to stay in the suburbs and countryside, away from cities where the cases were rising at an exponential rate.
How and why people are fleeing from big cities
Due to an uprising of COVID-19 patients, people are avoiding crowded places and as companies have provided work from home to most employees, people staying on rent and other accommodations for the purpose of working have left their working cities and moved to their hometowns.
Due to the pandemic, numerous businesses have halted their operations leading to business disruption and many other small businesses have lain off its employees who therefore had to leave the cities.
The U.S. jobs report from the Labor Department is expected to show U.S. employers shed nearly 30 million positions from payrolls this spring as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and related shutdowns.
However, as per other industry experts, the data suggest layoffs might have topped 40 million, while another count shows only about 20 million are tapping unemployment benefits. Whatever the exact measure is, unemployment is highly triggered by the pandemic and is making a historically high mark that might not leave the headlines easily.
Also Read: Approaches to the Risk Management Post COVID-19 Experience
The majority of the laid-off population are unable to pay rents on a regular basis and are leaving for their hometowns or places with low rents and livelihoods. The demand for essential products has surged and people are not inclined towards spending on luxury items. Numerous big brands have started offering huge discounts on non-essential products to attract people.
Also, in a recent Zillow survey, three-quarters of Americans suddenly working from home due to Covid-19 said they would prefer to remain at home a majority of the time if given the option, even after their workplaces reopen.
And two-thirds of those said they would ultimately consider moving if they had the flexibility to work from home as often as they want.
According to data from AirDNA, in the US, Airbnb saw year-on-year revenue in rural areas increased by $280 million in March 2020, or almost 30%, while revenue in urban areas fell by $75 million. In the same period, bookings in Manhattan and New Jersey fell by 66%, while bookings in some Cape Cod towns have soared by as much as 600%.
Also Read: Consumer Buyer Persona: A need for Business Today
Is COVID-19 Really Making People Leave the Cities?
As per industry experts, the business disruption caused by the pandemic has led many people to move their homes and live in a place with less COVID-19 cases. Moreover, as the COVID-19 Vaccine is still in making, it is leaving people with presumed safety measures back in the cities where they have the worst effect. Nonetheless, many network group experts say it won’t be much of an influence to leave permanently and only 5–10% of people might decide to stay back in remote areas. So, there is no such data that says it is all due to the COVID-19 outbreak that people are leaving to never return.
