Cities in Remission
A Revised ‘Sidewalk Ballet’
In San Francisco today I noticed something key about a particular part of the commercial core in this city’s post-COVID downtown. It was a calmed place, a de facto City in Remission.
In these three blocks, Nordstrom’s recent closure is symbolized by a revised “sidewalk ballet.” The revered Jane Jacobs term (that describes the delightful choreography of people-centric urbanity) has evolved to create a period of uneasy calm.
For Jacobs, in The Life and Death of Great American Cities, “eyes on the street” in New York’s Greenwich Village were the citizen-guardians of this sidewalk ballet.
Now the guardians are in uniform, especially on blocks with upscale businesses hoping to regain the foot-flow that may never fully return.
In commercial cores, cities often feel emptier than before 2020. Foot-flow is the prize, and until the recovery is more complete, this City in Remission is guarded by SFPD, and other security prominently on display.
I’m reminded of the soldiers who patrolled city streets in France after terrorist acts in Paris and Nice, a more extreme form of deterrence, but with a common purpose.
Will downtowns of the future, however they may reconfigure, be anchored in this way? We don’t know the answer — not until work patterns are more certain, offices reconfigure, and the patterns of the city evolve and adjust.
For now, in this eery, liminal period of the post-COVID city, centurions stand in plain sight to keep the looters away.
More entries will appear throughout the month of August, and will generate the basis for future presentations and exhibits. All photos by Charles R. Wolfe. Do not copy.
