The LIDN Weekly Roundup #60
Cities post Covid 19
With more than half of the world’s population live in cities and the pandemic has shed some light to the quality of life in our cities. Cities are at the centre of this pandemic, as how they have been in many previous plagues throughout our history. Statistics have shown that the cases of Covid 19 in cities are higher than other parts of the countries — that London recorded more than 20% of Covid 19 deaths in England and Wales and Madrid having almost a third of deaths in the whole of Spain.
It is an opportune time to look at new blueprint for urban planning. Many national and sub-national governments have announced plans to rebuild cities, in a different way. The pandemic is accelerating longer-term trends affecting cities and this includes digitalization of retail, the move to remote working, virtual delivery of services and the speeding up of the creation of cashless economies. I would like to explore a few examples of cities taking a leap to not only provide safe social distance, but encouraging green and sustainable development through the following:
Repurposing our streets: The need for social distancing has led cities like Milan, Athens and Bogota to have their streets retrofitted into bicycle lanes. For example, Athens announced plans to allocate 50,000 square metres of public space for cyclists and pedestrians. In London, there’s plan to change certain streets into cycle and pedestrian only streets.
Changes to sidewalks: Sidewalks have been widened to give people more ways to commute while also practicing social distancing.
Introducing more open air dining: Street food setting/open-air cafe which is popular in South East Asia, has now inspired restaurants in the West to have similar set up, to enable customers to have sufficient distance. We see restaurants in Soho, London taking up the whole street over the weekend and similarly in Vilnius, Lithuania, restaurants and bars can set up shop in its plazas, squares, and streets.
Improving green spaces in cities: Green space has been proven to be valuable to many residents at times of crisis in urban areas. Research shows that urban trees in the US could yield $25 million in savings just in air pollution-related health care costs and lost work days. Madrid is an example of a city with a new greening proposal which includes expansion and restoration of city parks, creation of 22 new urban gardens, creating community gardens using vacant public land and planting trees by the city’s river. Paved squares will be get green makeovers with plant beds, which will allow better rain absorption. Besides that, buildings will be encouraged to plant their facades with cooling, insulating creepers. Lastly, the city will also fund a new urban gardening school.
These articles provide a collection of interesting insights on the re-building cities post pandemic:
- Bloomberg CityLab: How the coronavirus recovery is changing cities
- Global Dashboard: Towards more equal and resilient cities post Covid-19
- Fortune: Cities still have a place in the post-pandemic world — but they have to be different
- Forbes: Seven Ways Cities Can Bounce Back After Covid-19
