COVID-19 as a game-changer? The impact of the pandemic on urban trajectories

Will the COVID-19 pandemic interrupt the recent European urbanization trends – and if so – what is the magnitude of this sudden shock, and how deaths, births, and net migration contribute to this disruption? Until now, most discussions on the topic have circled either around the anecdotal evidence of city center decline, or contrarian speculations about residential inertia and the forthcoming business-as-usual. Bringing clarity to the uncertainty and confusion surrounding COVID-19, this paper seeks to detect overarching patterns in and the magnitude of its sudden shock to long-term urban trajectories, understood as a reversal of the pre-pandemic population development trend, across European cities in the early 2020s. It reveals that during the first year of COVID-19, population growth in European cities significantly slowed down to −0.3 % per annum, with 28 % of all European cities having experienced a U-turn from population growth to loss. Out-migration was the main driver of such rapid urban shrinkage, while excess mortality associated with COVID-19 has also contributed to population loss in several European city-regions; some, especially, smaller cities suffered from a significant drop in birth rates. Based on the factorial, hierarchical, and temporal dimensions of the COVID-19 crisis, the paper provides a plausible forecast about the future of Europe's post-coronavirus city.