In NZ and around the world, Covid has prompted people to leave big cities in droves. Could this be the beginning of a huge shift?

At 22, Sophie-Lee Archer is way outside the profile of people who would normally move to the provinces for a quieter life. As an Auckland restaurant manager, she's used to being on high alert. But after two years of Covid hogging the headlines, it all got a bit too intense.

"Just about everybody you talk to is angry or upset, and it's all anybody talks about." Even off duty, she found she couldn't escape the general anxiety. "I always thought one day I'd like to move to Tauranga, to be near the beach and the open air and have some space – just not this soon."

Archer is about to start work managing a local restaurant and has already found a flat more affordable than her Auckland one. A friend is moving to Australia's Gold Coast for similar reasons. "He just wants a bit of peace from all this anger and craziness, and an easier pace of life."

Melanie Tuala feels much the same way. After 11 years in high-stress jobs in Auckland and Wellington, the 34-year-old has recently moved to rural Bay of Plenty. For her, the crunch came after the second lockdown.

"We'd just had enough and decided, now's the time. So we chucked most of our stuff into storage, except what we could fit into the SUV, and we crossed the [Auckland] border and got a rental down here and started looking for houses."

Tuala admits she had been thinking about moving for a long time but was put off by the thought of having to take a large pay cut. That concern evaporated once remote working became the new normal. "I realised, 'I can work from anywhere now and earn the same salary wherever.'"

She was thrilled to land a job at an electric bike company, UBCO, which is based in Mt Maunganui but has staff spread around the globe. "The only things I miss about Auckland are things like Uber Eats and the nightlife. But I have no regrets at all. For a busy professional, the drawcard of being close to nature and having that constant reset is really important. And I think lots of people are realising that now."

It's not just a local phenomenon – Archer and Tuala are part of an abrupt change in global demographics prompted by the Covid pandemic. The world's biggest cities have suddenly stopped growing, many for the first time in decades, as even the young and ordinarily resilient leave for easier, more affordable lifestyles in lower-density districts.

New York City lost nearly 4 per cent of its population, or 336,000 people, in the pandemic's first year, a new Cornell University study has found. London's inexorable population growth plateaued for the first time in decades. Auckland, roaring at 2 per cent annual growth in the five years before Covid, recorded a 0.1 per cent decline in the year ended June 30, 2021, likely to be continuing.

Where are they going? The clues lie in places such as Central Otago, which, despite the gutting of its tourism mainstay, is estimated to have grown by 2.4 per cent in the same period.

Ironically, the departure of so many city dwellers has noticeably improved commutes for those left behind. But this has presented another dilemma for urban planners: will public transport needs ever return to pre-pandemic levels?

A survey by economic consultancy NZIER for ASB Bank, released last month, shows 20 per cent of working New Zealanders are still spending some or all of their working week at home. The US Bureau of Labour Statistics reports more than 42 per cent of Americans worked from home during the pandemic's height, and city landlords are still unsure whether their offices will ever be filled again. Other countries' business hubs are reporting office vacancy rates in the high teens – more than double the global average before Covid.

Here, the trend is expected to be accelerated by a workforce exodus as global migration picks up. Just last week, Kiwibank revised its forecasts to predict a net outflow of 20,000 Kiwis this year, although it expects immigration gains to resume long term.

Demographers still aren't sure whether such trends are temporary phases or tipping points. Though hybrid working (some days in the office, some days at home) is now popular, other factors predating Covid may be as influential.

As sociologist and demographer Paul Spoonley says, unaffordable housing and traffic congestion are hardly new issues. About 10,000 people a year were already moving out of urban Auckland before Covid struck. The difference now is that these departures are no longer being topped up by immigrants.

Spoonley, a distinguished emeritus professor at Massey University, formally networks with other sociologists and demographers around the world, and says they're all on the edge of their seats. "Whether or not this is a reset – well, we're going to have to wait to see if it gels."

Although housing costs are the headline drivers, businesses are finding strong incentives to relocate, too. In England, office accommodation and salaries are so much cheaper in the north that there's a trend called "north-shoring" – upping sticks from London to the likes of Birmingham and Leeds.

Last year, the Economist reported that about 12 per cent of commercial offices were vacant worldwide, compared with 8 per cent pre-pandemic.

The silver lining of remote working may be increased productivity, as proximity to home and leisure appears to provide an incentive to get work done faster. But there's a further driver that researchers at Waikato University have detected in their new "20-minute city" survey. The planning concept centres on population hubs, where people's daily needs are mostly within 20 minutes' reach by foot, car or public transport. To test its potential here, the researchers surveyed 1500 Kiwis on what amenities they most valued. Project leader Iain White, a professor of environmental planning, says the two leading preferences were local shops and access to wilderness, gardens and parks.

"We were quite surprised. These two issues were the overwhelming favourite amenities over other things. And it didn't matter who you asked or where they lived – north or south, young or old, single or with a family."

Although it's not surprising that people value easy access to supermarkets, cafes and the like, the strong yearning for open spaces may give local and central government cause to pause. "We're hoping the 20-minute city idea will influence decision-makers, because we're in danger of losing these green spaces that, actually, people value extremely highly," White says.

Anecdotally, it's clear Covid restrictions accentuated people's sense of claustrophobia the world over. The response to lengthy confinement took many forms, from a home-baking bonanza to a surge in pet adoption. In New Zealand, home decorators decided they needed a bit of colour in their lives. Tile stockists, for example, have noticed many people got bored with beige once they had to live with it for weeks on end. And in countries where outdoor exercise was permitted, some cities' streets and parks became unusually crowded.

Spoonley says the pandemic accelerated the trend of families and empty nesters moving from big cities for lifestyle reasons. But there are inevitable balancing factors, he says. Students and young workers will still gravitate overwhelmingly to big cities, and the elderly often find they have to move back to them for mobility and healthcare reasons.

Unskilled workers are also likely to have fewer choices. Demographers calculate that in any skilled workforce, up to half will have the option, at least in theory, to work away from the office. For the unskilled, that's generally only 10 per cent.

Still, there's no doubting the new disillusionment with high-density living. The UK eased Covid restrictions much earlier than many other countries, but a recent survey found a quarter of London workers still want to work from home full-time.

As White notes, it bodes well for climate change. "Even if you're only working from home one day a week, that's one day a week's fewer emissions from driving."

Remote working can also save a considerable amount of commuting time. But whether that's a blessing is controversial, particularly because of its possible impact on women. Surveys, including the NZIER one, found the burden of homeschooling and childcare fell overwhelmingly on women during Covid restrictions. Nevertheless, studies led by Stanford University professor of economics Nicholas Bloom last year found nearly a third of tertiary-educated women with children wanted to work remotely full-time, compared with just 23 per cent of college-educated male parents.

Bloom describes the pandemic as "the biggest shock to American working life since World War II". He calculates 15 per cent of Americans will eventually become fully remote, compared with just 5 per cent pre-Covid, and a third of the workforce will do hybrid work.

Many employers are paying workers who come into the office a 10 per cent margin, says Bloom, and he believes that could easily become the norm. At the same time, companies are reassessing whether shorter working hours may be a new lever to increasing productivity – potentially taking a further toll on big cities' populations and office occupancy.

New insight has come from a Cambridge University study of Britons on furlough during lockdowns. They did not, as might have been expected, experience poorer mental health. Even those reduced to just one day's work a week maintained their sense of social status and agency.

Then there's the "Great Resignation" – a reported by-product of the skills shortage that has supposedly made people pickier about their working conditions. The Stanford-Chicago studies found 40 per cent of US workers would consider quitting if their employers refused to give them the option of some remote work.

White says the Great Resignation is part of the picture national and local governments now need to review. "The genie is out of the bottle there." However, he's not certain these new trends are yet being factored into New Zealand's infrastructure planning. "We're optimistic about the 20-minute city because it frames all the issues in a positive way, starting with what people want rather than what [authorities] might think they want."

Spoonley, too, is frustrated with the patchy demographic work local bodies do. Most don't have reliable, up-to-date data, so they're planning blind, he says.

Compounding all these factors is the millennial generation's rejection of the more-is-better work ethos.

Sophie-Lee Archer says the Covid years have made her look at Auckland differently. She's dismayed so many families are having to settle for tiny apartments with scant access to open spaces, nature and the opportunity to stretch out and reflect.

"I grew up on a farm, and I really value that ability I had to sort of run wild outside. And that's not just important when you're growing up. Everyone benefits from being able to get out into the fresh air, be by yourself sometimes, and find some peace. I think every­body should have that."

And Melanie Tuala says there has been a noticeable trend on social media of young people yearning for a more carefree and idealistic lifestyle.

"There's a large movement around van and caravan life, and going to Bali, and doing up rundown old houses in the country," she says. "They're just fed up with that extremely busy, noisy life with lots of distractions."

At the same time, she remains optimistic about the remote-working trend, and believes it could still work in New Zealand's favour. Her new employer is a great example, she believes, of the sort of high-tech businesses that will continue to thrive here once the world returns to its pre-pandemic settings.

“We’ve always had that vision for New Zealand, that it’s not just our cities that offer a great lifestyle. Hopefully, once we open up the borders, we’ll have an influx of talent in all those places we were worried might turn into ghost towns.”