URL: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2504.15871
Summary
This preprint studies sustained changes in urban mobility after COVID-19 in Argentina, Chile and Colombia. Using more than 170 million anonymised Meta-Facebook mobile phone records from March 2020 to May 2022, it examines how mobility changed across socioeconomic and rural-urban gradients. The analysis finds that mobility fell most sharply and remained below pre-pandemic levels in high-density and less deprived areas, while lower-density and more deprived communities returned to baseline more quickly. The findings show how pandemic mobility shocks reinforced inequalities and altered the role of urban cores in Latin American mobility systems.