Do People Really Want to Live in Cities in the Future?
It’s an uncomfortable question for planners, mayors, and urban theorists alike: what if most people never really wanted to live in cities in the first place?
For decades, the prevailing narrative has been that cities are the apex of civilization—a place where ideas collide, creativity thrives, and human potential is maximized. Cities, in this view, are humanity’s greatest invention, second only to language. But while scholars have waxed poetic about the magic of the metropolis, real-world choices suggest a more complicated truth.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, millions of people were untethered from their daily commute. Office towers shuttered, transit ridership plummeted, and foot traffic dried up in some of the country’s most bustling urban corridors. At the time, this exodus was dismissed as temporary. Yet now, years later, the data suggests it was something more: a revelation.
The real lesson of COVID-19 may not have been about viral transmission or vaccine rollouts, but about human preference. When the economic necessity of place was removed—when people could live anywhere—many chose to live somewhere else.
The Great Unmasking of Preference
During the height of the pandemic, nearly three-quarters of jobs that could be done remotely were being done remotely. A Stanford study found only about 20% of workers actually wanted to return to the office full-time. Pew Research confirmed that even among those who liked their coworkers, most said it wasn’t enough to lure them back in.
This was about more than just Zoom calls and yoga pants. Remote work offered something the city never quite could: control. Control over your time. Control over your space. Control over your surroundings.
And once people had a taste of that control, they didn’t want to go back.
In the absence of the daily commute, the downtown’s gravity weakened. Suddenly, all the things cities had promised—vibrancy, culture, connection—felt less like virtues and more like marketing slogans. And if people didn’t need to be downtown, many simply didn’t go.
Voting With Their Feet
Between 2020 and 2021, more than 600,000 people left core urban areas. Suburbs gained 350,000. Exurbs gained 660,000. These aren’t rounding errors. These are tectonic shifts.
San Francisco lost 6.3% of its population in just one year. New York City shed 3.5%. Washington, D.C., dropped nearly 3%. Even typically stable cities like Boston, Philadelphia, and Portland saw residents quietly trickle away. In aggregate, nearly every major U.S. city experienced a measurable decline.
What filled the vacuum? A return to an older American pattern: the pursuit of space, privacy, and autonomy.
For decades, urbanists pointed to the price premium in downtowns as proof that cities were in high demand. But price is a function of constraint as much as of desire. The moment people could decouple their job from their geography, the premium faded—and with it, the illusion of widespread urban preference.
The Limits of the Urban Ideal
Planners and advocates still argue that cities are more sustainable, more culturally rich, more economically vibrant. There’s truth in all of that. But it’s increasingly a conversation happening among the converted.
Public opinion is telling a different story. Surveys from YouGov and others reveal that most Americans believe suburbs and rural areas are both healthier and more environmentally friendly than cities. A stunning three-quarters of respondents said it’s more sustainable to build homes farther apart than closer together.
That may contradict decades of planning orthodoxy, but it aligns with lived experience. During the pandemic, cities saw their carbon footprints drop as people stayed home. Congestion disappeared. Emissions fell. People spent time outdoors—not in parks surrounded by towers, but in yards and trails and quiet suburban streets. Suddenly, sustainability didn’t look like density. It looked like distance.
It’s a return, in many ways, to a vision of America articulated by Frank Lloyd Wright: decentralized, green, and dispersed. One could argue it’s a revival of the Jeffersonian ideal of the independent homesteader. Either way, it’s a long way from the Jane Jacobs version of communal street life and dense walkable neighborhoods.
The Slow-Motion Crisis for Cities
Of course, none of this spells the end of cities. New York will still be New York. San Francisco still draws dreamers. But the trend line is ominous.
If for every 10% reduction in the geographic necessity of work, 1% of urban dwellers leave cities, then improved remote work technologies, decentralized infrastructure, and changing cultural expectations may steadily chip away at the urban population base over time. This isn’t a landslide—it’s erosion. But erosion, given time, can change the shape of a coastline.
What happens when cities no longer have the monopoly on opportunity? What happens when corporate prestige is no longer tied to physical headquarters? What happens when talent is hired from anywhere, and increasingly prefers to live in places with lower cost, lower noise, and lower density?
We may already be seeing it. Companies from Silicon Valley to Wall Street are opening “hubs” in Miami, Austin, Nashville. These aren’t temporary outposts—they’re signs of dispersion. The monocentric city is giving way to a polycentric future.
Beyond Nostalgia
There will always be those who romanticize the city. And to be sure, cities remain powerful engines of commerce, culture, and innovation. But increasingly, they are places people endure rather than embrace.
The real question isn’t whether cities can survive—but whether they can reinvent themselves in the face of new preferences. Can they become places of choice, not obligation? Can they offer livability and affordability at the same time? Can they meet people where they are, rather than demanding people meet the city where it stands?
That’s the challenge ahead. Because if COVID taught us anything, it’s that when people are given freedom to choose where and how to live, many choose against the city.
And that may be the most disruptive urban insight of all.
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