According to new research published in Cities, the international magazine, 93% of large metropolitan regions in Europe “shrank” or lost population as a result of the impact of COVID-19, with over two-thirds of all European cities experiencing a similar effect during the pandemic, as reported by Medical.net
Sustainable urban development
Dr Vlad Mykhnenko, associate professor of sustainable urban development, Oxford Department for Continuing Education, and a fellow of St Peter’s College, and Dr Manuel Wolff from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin have studied the sudden and acute shock of the virus on the long-term growth trajectories of European cities and have detected overarching patterns.
They found recent urbanization trends in Europe were dramatically interrupted in the first year of the pandemic: with population growth in European cities going negative (-0.3 % per annum, compared to an average growth rate of +0.3 %) compared to pre-pandemic years.
This sudden shock was especially pronounced in Europe’s largest 66 metropolitan areas (cities with 500,000 inhabitants and above).
Pandemic migration
Almost all experienced a drop in population growth rates.
Dr Mykhnenko maintains the findings were a major surprise, ‘Our study shows during the pandemic out-migration from European cities was as sudden as it was substantial, causing even the largest cities to shrink…It had seemed, general human inertia and high costs associated with moving would prevent a mass exodus from cities during the pandemic but 63% of all cities experienced shrinkage.’
The research shows, almost a third (28%) of all 915 European cities analysed experienced a U-turn from population growth to loss.
Demographic trajectories
This far exceeded the previous peak shrinkage, recorded in the late 1990s, when 55% of all European cities were losing population.
There are two key factors behind the loss.
Dr Wolff says further research should confirm if the detected changes were transient or herald a new area of downward demographic trajectories.
He maintains, ‘The post-COVID-19 revival will benefit the upper layer of urban hierarchy in the first place, helping re-grow and expand the largest cities, the core metropolitan areas.
Smaller cities will continue to suffer from death surplus and out-migration.’
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Source: Medical.net
