released in January, Stuart Rosenthal, a professor at Syracuse University, and coauthors questioned whether city centres are losing their appeal.
Their nuanced findings confirm what industry watchers have observed since the onset of the pandemic: Commercial real estate in cities that “rely heavily on subway and light rail” has been affected more by the adverse impacts of COVID-19 than cities where commuting is dominated by the automobile. The paper shows transit cities reported a higher density of employment in the urban core, reflecting businesses’ preference for central locations. On the flip side, commercial rents declined faster in transit cities than it did in auto-centric cities as the distance from the city centre increased. Furthermore, “COVID-19 reduced the value of density by 21 per cent” in transit cities.
of work trips: Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. Just behind them is Ottawa-Hull, where almost 19 per cent of work trips are made on public transit.