Making predictions about the future is always challenging, butpredicting how the pandemic will alter our world is an exceptionalchallenge. So far, those predictions have been wide ranging, buthave included a resurgence of suburbs and more work-from-homeoffice models, at lease in the near term. At the June 2020 EconomicOutlook on residential real estate hosted by the UCLAAnderson Forecast and the UCLA Ziman Center forReal Estate, academic Richard Florida,however, predicted that cities would make a strong comebackfollowing the pandemic with the potential for positive changes.

"I don't think this is the end of cities. I think that citieswill comeback strong," he said in the virtual conversation.Florida, the director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at theUniversity of Toronto's Rotman School ofManagement, global research professor at New YorkUniversity, and the founder of the Creative ClassGroup, has a lofty history of making predictions abouturban environments. He predicted the rise of urbanization in theearly 2000s and the resurgence of the urban core after the 2008financial crisis. He says that the pandemic will be nodifferent.

Since the onset of the coronavirus outbreak, Florida hasresearched the impact pandemics have on urbanization, and he foundthe impact is generally nominal and temporary. "What I have come toconclude through my research is that pandemics have not reallyaltered the course of urbanization," he said. "The gravitationalforce of clustering and locating around each other is a muchstronger force than infectious disease. Our cities will befine."