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The Siren Song of Scranton

Since the Industrial Revolution, economic activity has tended to concentrate in a few ever-expanding urban hubs. But now that the COVID-19 crisis has acquainted everyone with the benefits of remote work, many of the factors that have traditionally attracted talent and capital to megacities are suddenly in flux.

MILAN – The Great Lockdown in response to COVID-19 has altered billions of people’s perception of geographic space. For weeks, social and professional interactions were mediated by digital technologies that compressed physical distance and blurred the boundaries between the digital world and the real one. This unprecedented socioeconomic experiment is likely to have lasting effects, potentially transforming many aspects of our lives, and ultimately inducing people to rethink where they want to reside. The hierarchy of urban core and periphery, predominant in the Western world since the first Industrial Revolution, could be upended.

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