Creating Better Cities Out Of The Pandemic
Covid has provoked urban innovation at an unprecedented scale and pace; as we emerge from the pandemic, how can cities lock in the best of these changes?
How we live in our cities has changed dramatically over just a few months. It’s easy to feel very gloomy when you see vacant offices, shuttered shops, and empty trains. And things are grim for many people. But do I take heart from some of the positive urban responses to the pandemic. If governments and city authorities make the right choices, we could emerge from the crisis with resilient cities that are healthier, greener and more liveable for everyone.
Space For People Not Cars
As the crisis broke, people abandoned public transport and started walking, cycling and running in order to travel to work, pop to the shops or get some exercise. City administrations across the world rushed to put in place temporary safety measures to deal with this new way of moving, They widened sidewalks to allow people to walk safely and put in miles of temporary bike-lanes.
In the UK, residents have been given permission to reclaim road space in suburban neighbourhoods, cafes have spilled onto parking spaces, and on iconic Regent Street, work has begun to replace two lanes of highway with cycle lanes, planting and widened pavements.
Some of these changes will be locked in. In Berlin, most of the 14 miles of pop-up cycle lanes will stay. Bogota will keep the 80 kilometres of emergency Covid bike lanes. While Seattle will retain 20 miles of its Safe Healthy Streets. In the UK, Birmingham and York already had plans to make more space for walking, cycling and active travel, and my city, Bristol, announced last month that temporary pedestrianisation of chunks of the old city will be made permanent in early 2021.
“We’ll end up with lots of very angry motorists”
These changes, however, need to work for everyone. Pavement cafes in the city centre are great for keeping cafes and bars open, but they cater for a very specific demographic. Traffic calming and safe streets should be a priority in poorer neighbourhoods, too. And as drivers — wary of public transport — get back in their cars and traffic volumes increase, there will need to be careful negotiation and fine tuning of responses, otherwise we’ll end up with lots of very angry motorists.
Re-purposing the city centre
When the lockdowns hit, venturing into city centres was an eery experience. The commute to the office had stopped. Flagship stores were shut. And music venues, theatres and sports stadia fell quiet. People will, of course, gradually return; but some things will have changed for good.
The big national experiment in flexible, home working means that demand for conventional office space will fall. The real-estate company JLL reports that commercial real estate investment fell nearly 30% globally in the first six months of 2020. With the realisation that employees could be productive at home and enjoyed not having to commute every day, many employers are planning to maintain flexible working, expecting staff to be in the office office more occasionally. Some companies are saying they won’t renew their leases.
Of course many people will continue to go into work, because they haven’t got space at home or because of the nature of their employment, but there’ll be fewer people working in central offices. This is bad news for landlords, troubling for local authorities who rely on revenues, and potentially catastrophic for the micro-economy of sandwich shops, hair-dressers, after-work bars in city centres.
“The challenge is to make these revitalised city centres genuinely civic places”
City centres will need to adapt and change. As offices become cheaper and more flexible, different businesses will occupy them. Many commercial buildings will be repurposed for residential. And redundant road and parking space will be available for housing. City centre shops, which were already struggling may become homes, or delivery hubs or a physical showcase for online shopping.
The challenge is to make these revitalised city centres genuinely civic places, with citizens involved in decision-making, with public institutions and businesses engaging in their surroundings, and with affordable housing for families.
Greener cities
When people were allowed out in the pandemic, with half of the city shut and venturing indoors so risky, parks and green spaces were a lifeline. Whether exercising outdoors, meeting a friend, or just escaping the claustrophobia of home, being in parks or nature was good for body and soul. There was a huge desire for more access to good green space and some cities found just how wanting they were in that regard. And they also found that access is not shared equally. New data released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS), shows black people are almost four times as likely as white people to have no access to gardens, patios or balconies.
“Black people are almost four times as likely as white people to have no access to gardens, patios or balconies”
There was already mounting evidence that access to green space has major benefits for public health and wellbeing. The UK’s National Ecosystem Assessment found the health benefits of living with a view of a green space are worth up to £300 per person per year. Some progressive developers have started Building with Nature, making nature and green infrastructure an integral part of what they build. And, led by Bristol, local authorities across the UK have been declaring an ‘ecological emergency’.
Greening and re-wilding our cities should be a priority as we come out of lock down. If we are to revitalise our city centres, people living there, (and visiting), will want access to good green space. If we are to reap the huge health benefits from greener cities, we need to ensure that we bring greenery and the natural world to every citizen’s doorstep. And if we are to protect our cities for the future, we need to ensure green infrastructure is part of every plan and every development from now on.
Digitally-Enabled Citizens
Fears of contagion from going to the shops, or inability to travel, meant people have had to negotiate digital platforms, often for the first time. They ordered groceries online, booked time slots for visits, did Zoom calls with colleagues, and lived off takeaways. According to ONS, internet sales as a percentage of total retail sales shot up from 18% in February to 32% in May, with e-commerce sales up 20% year on year. Online grocery orders doubled. The big winner was Amazon, taking a huge chunk of this growth.(38% according to Edge by Ascential). The losers were high street shops, cafes and restaurants.
The pandemic has accelerated the move to digitally-enabled urban living, particularly in home delivery. Forced by necessity to trust and learn digital platforms, many consumers and workers won’t go back to the physical alternatives.
This will have downsides. There will be a huge increase in deliveries and logistics, with more vans on the road, more warehouses, more kitchens just cooking takeaways. Shops and restaurants will be permanently shuttered. With increased remote working, online entertainment, and home delivery, we’ll go out less.
“Not just digitally enabled consumers; but digitally enabled citizens”
The challenge will be to harness this online revolution to create better cities: not just digitally enabled consumers; but digitally enabled citizens. There are loads of great tools and innovations out there; the Library of Things enables people to borrow or share, rather than buying; Commonplace engages communities online in planning decisions; The Bristol Approach gives poorer communities to the tools and understanding to shape their city. Smart cities must not be something that just happens to our cities and citizens; city administrations can do more to shape this future.
The 15-Minute City
The pandemic confined us to our homes and we spent time and money on home-entertainment, home-delivery and home-improvement. (This domestication of life may be an enduring legacy of Covid). The pandemic also restricted activities to our immediate neighbourhoods. Working from home, fear of public transport, and stepping out of the front-door to exercise meant we were living our lives locally again.
If they’re living in the right place, people are seeing the benefits of working, shopping and playing in their neighbourhood. This thinking is encapsulated in the term ’15-minute city’, championed by Paris Mayor, Anne Hidalgo. The aim of her ‘ville du quart d’heure’ is to offer Parisians what they need on their doorstep, and encourage community resilience with grocery shops and cafes, parks and sports facilities, and schools and health centres, a walk or bike ride away.
“People are seeing the benefits of working, shopping and playing in their neighbourhood”
I am hugely attracted by this idea. If everyone is able to meet most of their needs within a short walk from their home, this could reduce unnecessary travel, improve health and wellbeing, revitalise local high streets, strengthen a sense of community, and increase resilience to future pandemics and other shocks.
However, many parts of our cities are not starting from a good place. They have been hollowed-out, with few shops, poor services, and erratic public transport. Action on the 15-minute city should not start in the neighbourhoods that already have an artisanal baker, an organic grocer, and a lovely local park. Priority and funding should go to enabling the poorest neighbourhoods in the city first.
Sieze The Moment
The pandemic has been painful and messy. Cultural institutions and all those who work in the arts are hurting; public transport will take a long time to recover; high street shops and jobs will be gone forever. But Covid has provoked urban innovation and experimentation at a scale and pace I haven’t seen before. As we slowly move out of the crisis, there is an opportunity to create healthier, greener and more inclusive cities, cities that will be more resilient to the inevitable pressures and shocks in the future.
