Pandemic Lessons

A few friends and colleagues have reached out to me over the last few weeks, and wondered how I felt about the current situation with COVID-19, and if I’d share some thoughts or ideas. Do I have some predictions, what do I think this means for the future of...(insert city-planning idea here)? That’s been flattering, and I do sincerely appreciate people reaching out. Like everyone, I do have thoughts. Who doesn’t? But mostly I’ve just been too busy with the day-to-day and hour-to-hour management of life to be able to take time and devote it to writing. For any of you that have kids, and can imagine living through a quarantine situation with a 2 and a 4 year old, I’m sure you can imagine how that goes. 

But there’s another reason I’ve been holding back, too. Frankly, the act of making bold claims and assertions right now seems rather, well, shallow and not worth my little remaining brain power. I’d much rather do what I’ve been doing in the down moments, which is to plant a garden, re-do our landscaping, and read some books. I enjoy a good debate and discussion as much as anyone - probably too much, in fact. But up until now, it just hasn’t seemed important enough to me to stake out intellectual territory or be “right” about what is going on.

Of course, I have read quite a bit of what others have written, since I’m not immune to thinking about things. And for those of us in the world of city planning, design, development, etc etc, it’s always interesting to opine and debate.

Here’s my main takeaway, though, from everything I’ve read. 

We have a really hard time saying “I just don't know.”

This is especially true for people of high intelligence (who I generally really like and consider myself among), and even more so in the age of the hot take. We are all so desperate to be the first one to predict something, and the one that someone points to years later to say, “see, he/she knew what was coming all along!” We are each and all desperate to be Michael Burry.

I get the impulse. I feel it, too. I suppose it’s just waned in me over the years, especially since I have much more immediate concerns.

What I actually wish is we would all just take the edge off. Turn down the volume. Chill out a bit. Try to be useful and helpful today, and not be so desperate to be right about long-term, macro issues. In the end, who cares? Is it better to have been the one right about “the end of (fill in the blank)” or is it better to have done something meaningful for yourself, your friends and family, your community, your city, etc, in this time period?

Can’t we all just admit we have no idea what will happen over the coming months and years?

Will we all be ok with the virus? We don’t know. There’s still so much we don’t know about the virus itself, though we are about to learn a lot more as society gradually reopens. 

Will a treatment emerge soon? We don’t know. There’s hopefulness in this regard, but it’s still so early. 

Will the virus persist with us for years? We don’t know. Will it go away after this summer? We don’t know. 

Will the economic stimulus be enough to keep us out of a deep or long recession? We don’t know. These are uncharted waters for everyone. 

Will we be able to keep issuing mountains of debt without consequences? We don’t know, and neither do any macro-economists or those who dabble in economics.

Whether you lean more towards optimism or pessimism, it still doesn't matter - there's too much uncertainty. Anyone who seems certain is only really projecting their temperament and view of the world to whomever will listen. Someone who is darkly pessimistic can find plenty of reason to validate that mindset today. Someone who is relentlessly optimistic can also find hope in the good side of humanity. Stories of both natures can be found every single day.

Less than three months into a pandemic affecting the US, I find any prediction of what will happen long-term to be unconvincing at best. That’s true even if it’s one I might be inclined to hope for. The truth is, what no one wants to admit is, we just don’t know. It’s so early, there are so many factors at play, and we all have very large intellectual blind spots. It’s rather easy to pick apart any big predictions at this stage, since they all have legions of built-in assumptions. 

To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” - George Orwell

It’s interesting to speculate. It’s fun to speculate, I get it. It’s even more compelling when you have a particular interest or issue that you hope the pandemic validates. I hear a lot of smart people mocking a return to “normal,” for a variety of reasons. I don’t understand that reaction. No matter what your particular axe to grind is with modern life (and trust me, I have a few), I don’t get the antipathy towards some sort of normality returning to people’s lives. It’s frankly inhuman. It’s a bit like rooting for all of modern life to fail.

I don’t root for failure. I root for success, for moderation, for boring normality.

I suspect, if asked to wager, that our economic life will get worse in the near term, and that was the direction of my comments in this CNU “On the Park Bench” discussion. I also suspect, like all economic and societal shocks, we will recover. Life will resume. People will adapt and move on. Fragility gets exposed in every crisis, and so does the remarkable spirit of humans to innovate, adapt and make a better life.

I hope that each of us can look back at this time and tell a story about something you did that was meaningful. Did you find a new hobby or skill? Did you help your neighbors or family? Did you add some beauty to the world? Did you take some time to think about your own fragility in the world, and ask what you can do about it? Did you enjoy some slow time? Did you reconsider a deeply held belief? Did you read a really good book? Have you done something that will inspire someone else?

I hope I can find time to write a bit more, now that the immediate emergencies in my life have settled into more of a routine. I do think there’s some important lessons we can all learn from this very unusual, and certainly disquieting time in our lives. I may even opine a bit. But I’ll do my best to stay focused on the tangible, the here and now, and not delve deeply into topics about which I understand just well enough to be terribly wrong. My interest, as always, is how humans live in cities and towns, and how to make them more pleasurable, safer, and more financially beneficial. If you care about those things, I’m delighted to have you as a reader.

Stay well,

Kevin