Changing Associations of Built Environment with Usage of Urban Space Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States

This paper aims to analyze how the associations of built environment and usage of urban space changed due to the social restrictions during COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. A total of 57,185 census block groups (CBGs) in 459 cities were analyzed. Built environment elements including road network, green space, and land use associated with usage of urban space (measured by over two billion mobile phone data) before/during COVID-19 were evaluated at both CBG and city level. Our results showed drastic decreases of urban space usage, ranging from 0.25 % to 76.35 %, among cities during COVID-19 social restriction. Specifically, CBG-level road length-node ratio, road intersection index and land use densities contributed less to usage of urban space during COVID-19. Meanwhile, the heterogeneity of city-level road network, commercial, public places, as well as hospitals and health cares exhibited stronger relationship with usage of urban space. The heterogeneity of green space at both CBG and city level showed less associations with usage of urban space during COVID-19. The discrepancies of the built environment effects on usage of urban space between CBG and city level suggest the importance of varying-scale analysis. Future interventions should consider space usages and health inequality from a space-varying perspective for post-pandemic period.