Here are some interesting figures about Venice take from this recent FT article by Chris Allnutt:
Tourist visits to Venice last year were estimated to be about 1/5 of what they usually are
Short-term rental bookings as of December 2020 were down about 74% year-over-year
It is estimated that short-term rentals normally represent about 12% of homes in Venice (this is significantly higher than the "typical city" which is estimated to be about 1-2%)
Even before the pandemic, average property prices had declined from about €4,500 per square meter in 2018 to €4,341 in 2019 (2020 data is still coming)
Pre-pandemic, the population of the city was about 50,000, which is less than a third of what it was back in the 1950s
A 2018 study by Airbnb reported that for every local Venetian the city had 74 tourists on average (wow)
Being a dominant port city, the city has generally been disproportionately impacted by plagues and other health crises throughout its history
The Lazzaretto Vecchio, which still stands today, is a small island in the Venetian Lagoon that was founded in the 15th century as a hospital to care for plague victims; apparently it was the first of its kind in the world
During the 15th century, Venice saw its population drop by about two-thirds as a result of an epidemic
At the height of the Republic of Venice in the 1790s, the city had a population of about 170,000; after falling to Napoleon it halved to about 96,000
It's worth pointing out that the "height of the republic" occurred after many great epidemics; the subsequent population decline was seemingly the result of a conquest and not pestilence
Photo by @canmandawe on Unsplash
If you've been following the housing market (in most cities) over the last year, this chart likely won't surprise you. It is from a recent City Observatory article by Joe Cortright talking about the "k-shaped housing market" that we have seen emerge over the last year. The above is for the US, but I would imagine that the chart would look similar for Canada, as well as for other countries. Here's an excerpt from the article:
There’s an obvious explanation for the different trajectories of house prices and rents: Low income workers rent; high income workers own and buy homes. High income households have been barely grazed by the Covid-19 recession. In fact, the combination of low interest rates and enforced savings (because many kinds of consumption spending, including dining, entertainment, travel and even much retail have been constrained by lockdowns), mean higher income households may find housing a much more attractive spending item. If you can’t go out to dinner, or take a vacation, you have more money to spend on a new home. Low wage workers are in the opposite situation. Low wage workers have borne the brunt of the recession; they are also much more likely to be renters than higher income households.
It is perhaps worth reiterating that our fixation on homeownership is not universal. If you live in Switzerland -- a very wealthy country -- you're more likely to rent than own. And if you live in Germany, you're more likely to live in an apartment than in a low-rise house. Still, that doesn't change the fact that the impacts of COVID-19, and our lockdowns, have been felt unequally. This chart is an example of that.
Here are the results from a recent survey by The Harris Poll and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, which asked 1,200 residents from the six largest metropolitan areas in the US how they were feeling about urban and suburban life during this pandemic. (The exact timing was last fall.)
The bar color indicates where the respondent current lives. So for example, of the respondents who currently reside in an outer suburb (blue bar), 73% said that they wouldn't change where they live. They seem to be feeling pretty good about their life decisions right now.
But for respondents who live in an urban area (black bar), 50% also said that they wouldn't change where they live. And interestingly enough, 25% of all respondents living in a city responded by saying that they were actually more likely to move to another urban area. (Perhaps Miami?)
For these urbanites, of which I would include myself, the city is far from dead.