SAN DIEGO — A new study from the School of Cities at the University of Toronto finds Downtown San Diego is recovering quicker from the pandemic than other large cities.
The study, conducted by professors and urban researchers from across North America, looked at cell phone activity before, during, and near the end of the pandemic in both large and medium-sized cities throughout North America.
The study found San Diego finished at the top of the list, ending with an 89 percent recovery since the middle of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, cities such as Detroit, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco finished at the bottom of the pack, with San Francisco having just a 31 percent recovery since the pandemic.
Karen Chapple is Professor Emeritus of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley as well as the director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto.
Chapple says a number of factors are driving San Diego's strong recovery.
"San Diego did perform near to the top, it's back at about 89 percent of its pre-pandemic activity," said Chapple. "It's grouped with a number of similar cities really, in the southwest, typically, newer cities and typically very auto-oriented cities, so places where people can drive to work and aren't dependent on transit."
Chapple says San Diego's car-centric culture worked in its favor because of the region's relatively low commute rates and availability of parking downtown. Each of those factors were positives during the pandemic as opposed to more transit-focused cities where residents steered away from mass transit as a way to avoid COVID.
But there were other factors as well.
"The places that did really well, also had very diverse economies downtowns," said Chapple. "What makes San Diego stand out compared to some of the other California cities, is it has a very strong art and entertainment sector. That, as well as San Diego's tourist economy in San Diego."
Chapple says San Diego bucked the trend seen in other California cities that saw skyrocketing housing prices, the economic pain from the pandemic, as well as a rising number of unsheltered people.
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