COVID-19 and protests will shake up US cities

Significance

These factors are stoking the urban civil unrest that has flared across the country in the last fortnight. What had seemed a practical matter of managing COVID-19 and post-pandemic economic recovery has become a profound ideological divide over urban inequality, police impunity and systemic racism.

Impacts

• Civil unrest will worsen if political elites do not make post-pandemic recovery sufficiently inclusive.
• Cities good at reinvention will adapt to post-pandemic conditions, especially if they can retain talent.
• Cities with research and innovation clusters, postgraduates and high-tech infrastructure will have an advantage.