I think the increased prevalence of work from home is a huge factor for meet ups and urban activities in general. If I'm already out and about and likely nearby it's an easier sell to get me to go to a meet up. It's harder if I'm being asked to head to a central downtown just for the meet up, but there aren't enough interested people in my suburb to support a more convient meetup.
I've certainly found that myself. Even pre-pandemic, I was mostly working from home (or traveling).
When I was in an office, even if an evening event was definitely out of the way (as was typical), the fact that I had to get in my car anyway meant that it wasn't that big a deal to go into the city. I find the bar for leaving my house to take an hour drive to an evening event is a lot higher and mostly I don't do it.
Perhaps. But shouldn't there be a lot of people living in the urban area anyway? If not, that's kind of a change from the booming urban neighborhoods of 2013-2019.
While many offices are not within city limits quite a few others are and pre-COVID there was certainly a lot of net commuting into cities for the workday. There's presumably less of that today in general and it's one thing to do an after-work event in the city if you're already there vs. having to go in.
