This book highlights the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cities. The COVID-19 pandemic and the associated economic and social impacts have been felt around the world. In large cities and other urban areas, the pandemic has highlighted a number of issues from pressures on urban labour and housing markets, shifts in demographic processes including migration and mobility, changes in urban travel patterns and pressures on contemporary planning and governance processes.

Despite Australias relatively mild COVID exposure, Australian cities and large urban areas have not been immune to these issues. The economic shutdown of the country in the early stages of the pandemic, the sporadic border closures between states, the effective closure of international borders and the imposition of widespread public health orders that have required significant behavioural change across the population have all changed our cities in some and the way we live and work in them in some way. Some ofthe challenges have reflected long-standing problems including intrenched inequality in labour markets and housing markets, others such as the impact on commuting patterns and patterns of migration have emerged largely during the pandemic.

This book, co-authored by experts in their field, outlines some of the major issues facing Australian cities and urban areas as a result of the pandemic and sets a course for future of the cities we live in.

Scott Baum is trained as an economist and sociologist with research interests in labour market economics, urban sociology and urban and regional development and change. He is currently a member of the Cities Research Institute and the School of Environment and Built environment at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. He has published widely in the international literature, and his latest book Methods in Urban Analysis was published by Springer in 2021.Amanda Davies is a human and population geographer with research expertise in demographics, migration and regional development. She is currently the head of Social Sciences at the University of Western Australia and has extensive applied research networks with government and industry partners. Amandas work has been published in leading international journals and cited in government reports and resulting policy related to regional development.John Stone is a lecturer in Transport Planning in Urban Planning Program in the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, University of Melbourne. His research seeks to improve public transport performance in Australian cities through a greater understanding of the professional practice and the political and institutional context for public transport planning in similar cities in Canada and in German-speaking Europe. Since completing his Ph.D. in 2008, his work here and at the Swinburne Institute for Social Research has been funded through grants including an ARC Discovery Project and a Commonwealth Endeavour Research Fellowship. This work follows over 20 years of engagement with public transport management in Melbourne that has included work in local government and the community sector.Elizabeth Taylor is a senior lecturer in Urban Planning& Design at Monash University. Taylors research explores links between urban planning, housing markets and locational conflict. Often using spatial and historical perspectives, her research develops understanding of long-term urban change and the role of policy settings in it. She was previously a vice chancellors postdoctoral research fellow in the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT University and a McKenzie fellow at the University of Melbourne; as well as working in consultancy and government research roles.Emma Baker is a professor of Housing Research at the University of Adelaide. Her work examines the health and human impacts of housing and location in urban and regional environments, producing academic, as well as policy-relevant research. Driving this work is a conceptual focus on housing and location as a social determinant of health and an interest in analyses that utilize longitudinal, spatial and administrative big data.

COVID-19 and Australian cities: when the pandemic came to town.- Population challenges and change in pandemic cities.- COVID-19 and the social structure of cities: The forgotten vulnerable.- The great job reshuffle: How COVID-19 changed urban labour markets.- Housing and the pandemic.- Moving around the COVID city.- Planning the COVID city.- The future of COVID cities.