Understanding human urban dynamics is essential but challenging as cities are complex systems where people and space interact. Using a customer-level data set from a leading Korean accommodation platform, we identify that urban hierarchy, geographical distance, and attachment to a location are crucial factors of social gathering behaviors in urban areas. We also introduce a model that incorporates the factors and reconstructs the key characteristics of the data. Our model and analysis show that COVID-19 leads to significant behavioral changes in social gathering behaviors. After the outbreak, people are more likely to visit familiar places, avoid places at the highest level of the urban hierarchy, and travel close distances, while the total number of accommodation reservations does not change much. Interestingly, these changes facilitate social gathering activities only at other high levels, implying an external shock reduces the centralization of human urban dynamics but worsens the inequality of urban areas at low levels.
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