Is the ‘student city’ lost? The rhythms of Lodz as a consumption-oriented student city through the COVID-19 pandemic lens

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic calls into question the hosting of students as an urban growth formula after the spread of online education. Therefore, we look at Lodz, Poland, to understand how student cities operate during the pandemic and gain insights into their futures. We unfold the pre- and intra-pandemic rhythms of students’ presence and activities in Lodz’s time-space and their attitudes toward the post-pandemic future. We show that the pandemic spurred many students to escape from Lodz and changed the activities of those staying in the city by limiting their frequencies and locations. However, we expect students to repopulate Lodz, although its post-pandemic existence might evolve through further rhythm changes. Moreover, it will depend not only on the students’ demand for higher education per se but also for collective consumption opportunities. Therefore, the pandemic itself does not seem to render the idea of a ‘student city’ obsolete in the long term.