CURB: The COVID-19 pandemic as disruptive force for urbanization

RESEARCH CONTEXT: One year after the global outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, its societal impact has become ever more obvious. Globally, the pandemic displayed an uneven spatial distribution. High numbers of infections and deaths in well connected, dense areas have supported the image of the Covid-19 pandemic as an urban/suburban problem. From one day to the next, former assets of urban density and urbanity became handicaps for daily life. Contemporary scholarly debate in geography and planning studies is sketching long-term changes in the urbanisation process: shifts in the urban landscape, new suburbanisation movements, or a ‘rural renaissance’.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND OBJECTIVES: The CURB project builds on the research gap around the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on urbanisation. It investigates the actual impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on people’s residential preferences and satisfaction, as well as on the perceived qualities of locations. Implications of future urbanization trends of cities and regions and eventual normative implications for spatial planning practice can be deduced from these aspects. The project will elucidate the extent to which the Covid-19 pandemic disrupts whole urbanization processes, identify new perceptions of urban quality emerging among residents, and determine whether these will trigger changes in spatial planning practice and culture.

METHODS: The CURB project applies a ‘fully integrated mixed-methods design’. Key methods range from regional analyses of quantitative register data to qualitative media analyses. The heart of the research design is a large online public participation GIS (PPGIS) survey reaching out to 30,000 households in Eastern Austria. The online survey focuses on spatial perceptions, spatial practices, and residential preferences during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. Eastern Austria shows the full range of varying regional types, from the metropolitan core of Vienna to rural peripheral border areas.

LEVEL OF ORIGINALITY: The CURB project will generate new knowledge on the lasting socio-spatial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. In theoretical terms, it will contribute to the advancement of understanding urbanization under crisis conditions. Methodologically, the research develops a novel approach for integrating PPGIS into a mixed-methods design in large scale.

PRIMARY RESEARCHERS INVOLVED: The research team is led by Alois Humer, professor of geography and regional research, who has previously led and successfully completed FWF projects. The two core members of the team, Anna Kajosaari and Martina Schorn are both entering into the important early-postdoctoral phase of their promising careers. The team members complement each other in terms of scientific qualifications, methodological skills, thematic foci, and project experience. Additionally, the team establishes an international cooperation with Marketta Kyttä (Aalto University), a pioneer and world-leading scholar of PPGIS methodology.