How do you think Covid-19 may change your community permanently?

The Bay Area is a place people flock to for tech jobs, and housing prices, crowding, and traffic have all skyrocketed because of it. Now that many of these jobs are remote, there will be less demand for housing here (SF already has record numbers of houses for sale as people leave). Housing prices may go down, tech companies may spend less on creating resort-like campuses, “Silicon Valley” may no longer be localized in the actual valley.

Our coastal town is also a Mecca for summer visitors from NYC who fled here in the beginning and may decide to stay, especially if they can work remotely. A lot of the appeal here is the tiny businesses and a strong community feel because of that. I worry that we will lose too many of those to keep our community feel intact.

Not at all in the long run. Change comes to the rural midwest slowly. Even now there’s few masks and little evidence of a pandemic other than masks.

Several high tourist spots will take years to get back to where they were December 2019; Hawaii unemployment rate jumped to over over 22% in April, last December it was 4 %. Travel to the islands from mainland and between islands is restricted !

Commercial air travel has mothballed thousands of planes, that could takes years to get back to where is was too.

Sixty percent of restaurants that shut down during the pandemic are now closed for good !

Verizon Wireless has several of their store properties for sale, more than 70 percent of Verizon’s corporate-owned retail locations are now closed. The days of walking in to buy a mobile device are limited. You can order online and get curbside pick-up at some stores.

I think there will be more meetings and exercise done on Zoom permanently. My community already had some meetings so full during peak season that people would drive all the way to the location and be refused entry. If the clubs will Zoom the in-person meeting then this could fix part of the problem.

Relatives and friends and part time residents have been able to Zoom and still enjoy their favorite Zumba teachers and conversation clubs.

As far as I can tell people are still moving down here and still planning vacations here. I think possibly more people will be moving here than before, more to Florida overall, not just where I live. If you can work from anywhere, why not where there are palm trees and have your vote count and pay zero income tax? If you have decided life really is short and can change on a dime, why not retire to Florida sooner if you can?

I’m wondering what will happen with business space that are now empty. In my immediate area there is only a small portion of vacant store fronts so far, but what about large free standing stores and restaurants that are now vacant? What about buildings that were full of office workers who will now be working from home permanently? How long until a new tenant or owner goes in? What about converting properties, I think that might happen a lot. Convert to medical facilities or residential, or some buildings will rent space for business meetings I guess when in person meetings start up again.

Houses are selling like hotcakes around here because people want out of the city and urban areas and they want to move here and more north. I live in what’s called “horse country” and there are lots of lakes around too. From what I understand, this is very desirable to people who want their own private spaces. Houses with pools are also selling. During the time of the shutdown, I couldn’t imagine being stuck in an apartment, especially for those with little kids.

I just saw someone post in an affluent CT town next to mine that her house sold in 3 days.

Also, many restaurants are closing in my area and in CT (which is a five minute ride from my house). It’s sad. Some have been in business for a long time, but did not survive the shutdown and restrictions.