As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to transform lives and ways of living across the globe, it is becoming increasingly clear that adaptations involving both physical and institutional infrastructure are warranted. Cities are at the forefront of these adaptive changes as dense urban environments are particularly vulnerable to the spread of contagious airborne diseases such as the novel coronavirus. This paper considers how COVID-19 might influence where and how people live, work, recreate, and move about the city, and how these changing patterns might in turn shape future development trajectories. We also discuss how cities are currently responding to the public health threat posed by COVID-19, and how they might use planning and design strategies to improve resilience in the face of future pandemics.

This paper explores inequity in neighborhood walkability at the micro-scale level by qualitatively examining six streetscapes in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A photographic survey is used to highlight differences in the quality and design of the built environment among pairs of streetscapes with high or low social vulnerability but approximately equal quantitative Walk Scores^®. The survey revealed discernable differences in the quality and maintenance of the built environment among those in more and less disadvantaged neighborhoods. This was true of several characteristics expected to affect walkability, including enclosure, transparency, complexity, and tidiness. Streetscapes in neighborhoods with high social vulnerability exhibited less contiguous street walls, fewer windows and less transparent storefronts, less well maintained infrastructure, fewer street cafés, and overall less complexity than those in neighborhoods with low social vulnerability. Implications for planning and policy are discussed.

This study examines the spatial and statistical relationships between social vulnerability (SV) and neighbourhood walkability across three large U.S. cities with different urban typologies and development patterns: Charlotte, NC (a low-density, fast-growing “Sunbelt” city); Pittsburgh, PA (a moderate density, shrinking “Rust Belt” city); and Portland, OR (a progressive West Coast city known for its sprawl-containment policies). Binary logistic regression, independent-samples t-tests, and mapping techniques are employed to determine whether neighbourhoods with high SV (i.e. older populations, higher poverty rates, more service occupations, lower educational attainment, and a higher proportion of minorities) are as likely as those with low SV to exhibit a high degree of walkability. The publically available Walk Score® metric, based on proximity to amenities, street network connectivity, and density, was used as a proxy for neighbourhood walkability. The results indicate significant variability among cities, with Charlotte exhibiting the greatest potential for inequitable access to walkable urban environments and the most prominent concentration of “walk-vulnerable” block groups (BGs) with high SV and low walkability. Both Portland and Pittsburgh exhibited more equitable access when comparing BGs with high and low SV; however, they each presented unique spatial patterns, visualised using a series of maps.

With support and demand for walkable urban spaces on the rise, there has been growing concern among academics and practitioners of increasing exclusivity, particularly in amenity-rich areas. This study examines equity in neighborhood walkability from the perspective of housing affordability, asking whether more walkable urban neighborhoods have less affordable housing from the viewpoint of both neighborhood residents and households within the encompassing metropolitan region. While considering additional factors that may affect housing affordability, including coastal proximity, crime, rail access, housing age, housing size, and employment accessibility, the results indicate lower housing affordability primarily for renter households already living in walkable neighborhoods, but not for those looking to move to a more walkable neighborhood from within the same metropolitan area. Case studies of three large U.S. urban areas, Charlotte, NC, Pittsburgh, PA, and Portland, OR, highlight local variations in the walkability–housing affordability nexus.

Cities across the United States are experiencing a surge in urban residential development, particularly within the downtown core and other centrally located, historic, mixed-use urban neighbourhoods. Often situated in former warehouse districts or other ‘marginal’ areas, many of these neighbourhoods have been revalorized and reinvented as hubs of creative–cultural production and consumption. Through an examination of 102 US neighbourhoods in 70 mid-sized metropolitan areas, this article explores patterns in the physical form, geography, and recent demographic and socio-economic evolution of the ‘creative–cultural district’ (CCD). The results of this exploratory analysis suggest that over the previous decade (2000–10), the majority of CCDs attracted high-skill, high-wage creative–knowledge workers at a rate faster than their respective metropolitan areas. This ‘creative gentrification’ was also evident in rising residential populations, household income, education and rent. Rent increased faster than income in over half the surveyed neighbourhoods, suggesting that a widening deficit in affordable housing has accompanied growing consumer demand for vibrant urban neighbourhoods and associated arts/cultural/entertainment amenities.