Corona, Queens, tells us everything about cities and coronavirus
This is Shutdown Corners, a newsletter about how coronavirus is reshaping urbanism
Coronavirus is a disruptor, but it’s also a powerful accelerant. That’s certainly true when it comes to inequality in the United States. The new COVID Racial Data Tracker shows black Americans account for 25 percent of those lost to the disease, double the demographic’s share of the U.S. population.
Take Corona, Queens, a vibrant, diverse, working-class immigrant neighborhood that’s home to many of the day laborers, restaurant workers and cleaners who keep the city that never sleeps running. Residents already struggled to pay the bills: despite high rates of labor force participation, many work low-paying jobs and face rising housing costs, and median household income is under $50,000. More than half of all kids in the district lived in homes below or near the poverty level in 2017.
It’s also home to the ZIP code with the highest number of coronavirus deaths in the city (per a New York Times analysis updated this morning). Many factors contribute: a lack of healthcare access, a workforce often classified as essential workers who have higher risks of contracting the illness, lack of financial resources, and immigration status that often makes families ineligible for the social safety net. In March, doctors said the conditions in area hospital were “apocalyptic.” And working from the home office isn’t an option. Assemblymember Catalina Cruz, who represents the area, told The City, “if you don’t work, you don’t eat or pay rent. Simple,”
Many reports speak of laborers like Angel, an Ecuadorian immigrant who works on a Manhattan construction site, became sick, and felt he had nowhere to turn. Food pantries have been flooded. Local business owners—likely minorities, who have struggled to gain access to government loan programs—said the neighborhood looks like a ghost town. Nearby parts of Central Queens, like Elmhurst and Jackson Heights, have also borne the brunt of the pandemic’s impact.
The virus’s toll on the Latino community—34 percent of those who died in New York were Latino—is especially striking. Per CNN:
Latinos had the second-highest rate of coronavirus deaths, with 259.2 per 100,000, behind African Americans, who are averaging 265. Nationwide, the Pew Research Center reports that Latinos are among the hardest hit due to the coronavirus: 40% of Latinos, compared to 27% of all Americans, had to take a pay cut, and 29% lost their jobs, as opposed to 20% of the overall population. Another recent analysis by the Latino advocacy group Mijente found that over 24% of Latinos work in low-wage jobs, a stat that doesn't even begin to measure the even lower wages and poorer working conditions of undocumented workers.
It’s a good time to ask what New York is doing for neighborhoods like this, and how cities across the nation are responding to this dire crisis. As Alissa Walker expertly points out in her latest story for Curbed, this isn’t just a time for urbanists to dream big about expanding bike lanes and al fresco dining. This should be a time to squarely look at the vastly different experiences communities are having—frankly, to look at disparities and the death toll—and work to bridge those gaps and injustices. Sure, Slow Streets and increased pedestrian access are great things. But they shouldn’t be prioritized above providing healthcare and protecting essential workers; that means investing in safe, affordable, and reliable public transit for one, not glorified running tracks in wealthy residential neighborhoods.
We’re all adapting and making painful adjustments. But I’d hope our leaders continue to feel uncomfortable about what’s happening in the neighborhoods with a disproportionate number of at-risk workers and an inappropriate amount of attention.
Sadly, that’s often not the case. Consider New York’s subway, arguably the most vital piece of public infrastructure in the entire region, and one that’s been starved of funding for decades. As transit expert Alon Levy pointed out, at a time when the agency in charge, the MTA, expects it’ll need to spend $700-$800 million just to get people back on the subway, the New York Stock Exchange is reopening its trading floor, but banning traders who take public transit from entering. The messages that sends—public transit is dangerous, avoid it if at all possible and important people avoid public transit and so should you—isn’t just counterproductive and classist, it’s insulting and outrageous at a time when 123 MTA workers have died from coronavirus as of yesterday, and many workers in Corona still wake up every morning to catch the subway to get to work.
The long-term scars of the coronavirus pandemic will leave generational trauma on areas like Corona. Economist expect that many of the millions of jobs lost won’t come back, and while the current situation is creating plenty of delivery jobs, predictions about remote work suggest the ecosystem of jobs that come from cleaning offices or operating restaurants downtown won’t be the same. We have a lot of work to do to help our cities recover, work that should begin in neighborhoods like Corona.
Reading list:
WFH WTF: After talking to a few sources about the impact of remote working this week, I’m convinced this is a story of stages. Step one is getting used to working from home; adjusting business processes, trying to figure out childcare routines, learning that what was once something that had to happen face-to-face can happen remotely. As much as the announcement that Facebook would be allowing widespread remote work was big news, I think the real changes will happen in a few months, especially if, at that point, we realize coronavirus is going to be around for awhile. By that point, conventional wisdom will have changed, companies won’t care where their workers live, and new businesses will have appeared to take advantage of social shifts.
You can see the start of shifts now: in high-end homes, fancy offices will be the next “room boom,” a global biking revolution is taking shape, cleaning will be big business, and commercial real estate will need a new purpose.
Part of that conventional wisdom may be that the perceived benefits of teleworking aren’t so great. This article looks at studies suggesting there are hidden environmental costs to remote working: long-term, workers live further from downtown, leading to more car dependency, and higher levels of non-work vehicles miles traveled.
“Some recent studies…have made a case for teleworking policies, showing through an activity-based model that they have the potential to reduce network congestion and vehicular emissions specifically during rush hours. Our results show that although planners and policymakers have hypothesized that the development of telework could potentially reduce travel demand, those forecasts remain largely unmet…”
And, of course, it’s instructive to ask how many of the workers in Corona, Queens, will be able to log in remotely.
Thanks for checking out Shutdown Corners, a newsletter written by Patrick Sisson, a freelance writer in Los Angeles covering the trends, tech, and policy shaping our cities. Please consider referring to a friend, and if you were sent this, please subscribe yourself. Send any tips, feedback, suggestions, or questions to patsisson@gmail.com.