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One of the lessons from this pandemic is that the coronavirus spreads easily in crowded places. I am wondering if the covid-19 pandemic runs for some years whether we will see a reversal of the urbanisation that has been going on, or whether the forces driving that are too strong.
On an anecdotal level, our local food shop has decided to expand because of the results of the pandemic. We are living in a small community that has slowly been depopulating. This decline has been a long term since the end of the 1800s when this section of the islands had over 2,000 people (most in deep poverty/subsistence level), we are now somewhere between 800 and 900. The pandemic time has not so much increased the year round inhabitants, it has been that people have been spending more time away from the city in their 'second homes/summer cottages' as the countryside seems a safer place. The extension is scheduled to open next Easter when, according to the shopkeeper, people start using their summer cottages. It is good to see some indication that the community I am in might buck the century long tread of decline.
I suppose the criteria of whether urbanisation continues will be the availability of jobs, but with more distance working that does give the rural areas a little more advantage than it previously had.
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