[Updat­ed March 23] Ques­tions about the future are obvi­ous­ly on every­one’s mind as the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic sweeps the globe, shut­ting down cities and states across the Unit­ed States after months of warn­ings about the risk from Asia and Europe, and mod­els of both suc­cess and fail­ure in con­tain­ing the spread of the coro­n­avirus. Con­fined to the rel­a­tive­ly small spaces of homes and apart­ments, sur­round­ed by immense cities and regions, ques­tions about whether liv­ing arrange­ments and devel­op­ment pat­terns are resilient and safe enough take on new mean­ing dur­ing a pan­dem­ic, and new anx­i­eties.

As news con­tin­ues to break and the sit­u­a­tion con­tin­ues to change, the media will con­tin­ue to debate the lessons of the pan­dem­ic, includ­ing ideas about urban­ism. Some of the lead­ing voic­es in urban­ism, plan­ning, and design media are already attempt­ing to recon­fig­ure a vision for the future of cities, now that the coro­n­avirus has revealed so much about the ways we live.

For those who are ready to also pon­der these ques­tions, here is a roundup of articles—of vary­ing lev­els of opti­mism, spec­u­la­tion, and “newsiness”—on the changes that are already under­way in cities, and what we can expect when the pan­dem­ic is over.

• “Pan­demics Are Also an Urban Plan­ning Prob­lem” (City­Lab, March 6)
• “Coro­n­avirus out­break’s sil­ver lin­ing for cli­mate cri­sis like­ly to fade” (The Japan Times, March 12)
• “Are Sub­urbs Safer From Coro­n­avirus? Prob­a­bly Not.” (City­Lab, March 13)
• “Social dis­tanc­ing revives Amer­i­ca’s sub­ur­ban instincts” (The Boston Globe, March 16)
• “Why Chica­go and oth­er cities are vul­ner­a­ble to the virus: Their strength is their weak­ness” (Chica­go Tri­bune, March 17)
• “Why Nor­way Is Ban­ning its Res­i­dents From Their Own Vaca­tion Homes” (City­Lab, March 17)
• “Can City Life Sur­vive Coro­n­avirus?” (New York Times, March 17)
• “Philadel­phia has endured plagues before. It adapt­ed and became a bet­ter place.” (Philadel­phia Inquir­er, March 18)
• “Build­ing a future in a coro­na paral­y­sis” (CNU Pub­lic Square, March 18)
• “COVID-19 may sport the thinnest sil­ver lin­ing: a clean­er cli­mate” (Smart Cities Dive, March 19)
• “The new coro­n­avirus econ­o­my: A gigan­tic exper­i­ment reshap­ing how we work and live” (The Wash­ing­ton Post, March 21)
• “Will coro­n­avirus spur a traf­fic-solv­ing remote-work rev­o­lu­tion? Don’t count on it” (Mer­cury News, March 22)

These kinds of ques­tions serve as con­text for mas­sive chal­lenges fac­ing com­mu­ni­ties as the worst effects of the pan­dem­ic start to show in hos­pi­tals and unem­ploy­ment num­bers over the com­ing days and weeks, but the con­nec­tions between the tra­di­tion­al role of plan­ning and the future of plan­ning to the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of pub­lic health and pros­per­i­ty are obvi­ous now, more than ever. Plan­ners will be essen­tial in the hard work of answer­ing ques­tions about the pub­lic realm, mobil­i­ty, social iso­la­tion, and local and region­al lead­er­ship. Now, soon, and for the long-term.

[Please share your ideas about how plan­ning and the future of cities will change as a result of COVID-19 in the com­ments below, or by send­ing a pitch to Plan­e­ti­zen, at [email pro­tect­ed].]