Contemplations on the Consequences of Corona on Social Cities

By Regitze Marianne Hess, architect, @IFHPKnowledge, @People4Cities

Photo by Free To Use Sounds on Unsplash

The current corona crisis is bringing to bear aspects of the urban life which we may otherwise take for granted. It is a great test upon the health and well-being of the social fabric of our cities, the communities where we work, study, play and gather, the neighbourhoods where we shop, live and enjoy everyday life, and our households where we now are housebound.

For a night crawler, like me, it offers new connotations to “house parties”, and perhaps will give rise to totally new genres of house music. But thinking back in time, as we send all our young home from school, basically telling them to avoid exchanging bodily fluids, it is a grim reminder to those of us who came of age during the emergence of HIV/AIDS, which brought free love to a halt.

Our popular notions of public space and public life are being challenged by the need to constrain physical contact. But perhaps finally giving credence to spacing out in your own zone.

 At the same time, the current consequences are a great attest to the real “old school” virtue of walking and the freedom of bicycling. Rebecca Solnit reminds us how ordinarily people used to socialize on a stroll - as a wholesome thing - when tuberculosis was an epidemic of much of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. This was back when IFHP emerged as a voice of good, clean living, advocating the garden city model, with the sociable city at the heart of Ebenezer Howard’s legacy, and since evolving into the vehicle of current campaigns for social cities and housing for all.

Photo by Branimir Balogović on Unsplash

Corona is prompting us to come up with alternative strategies for coming together. Virtual means may seem to be the go-to solution, but does this include everyone? What is proving more powerful is the chorus of voices joining in song and music from windows and balconies.

It is a privilege and a paradox to be in a place – such as Copenhagen - that is a frontrunner in the advocacy and implementation of cities for people; thank you to Jan Gehl and the Gehl community, and to the will and policy of cities and state. Now with the corona pandemic, Denmark being just a few steps ahead of many others - in locking down social interaction. Even the Danish Queen has cancelled her birthday celebrations now in April. On the evening of the third day of shut down speaking to the nation - first time since the end of WWII in 1945 that a Danish monarch speech to the nation in addition to the New Years’ speach - telling us iof our responsibility to "be together in staying apart".

All of this is bound in the importance of trust; the need for agile leadership; acting on behalf of the common good.

As the world churns with concern, let us not lose sight of time to unwind, and the healing power of a constitutional offering peace of mind.

In praise of: Ahmet Gursoy, A New Yorker by Choice. Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking, and the female flaneur; Jan Gehl, all the good Gehl people and the message of Cities for People and the Soft City, and the teachings of How to Study Public Life: Peter Hall & Colin Ward their Sociable Cities: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard;

Author:
Regitze Marianne Hess, Serving IFHP since 2005. Architect MAA, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen (1993). B.Eng. – Civil, McGill University, Montreal (1985). A career of working with and advocating for better cities and built environments through the world of philanthropy, non-profits, academia & private practice; as convener; curator; publisher, editor & writer; teacher and critic, including Professor of Practice in Urban Studies with DIS – Study Abroad in Scandinavia. Working with Cumulus; DAC; Danish Arts Foundation; Design Declaration; Gehl Institute; International Federation for Housing and Planning [IFHP]; KADK; Realdania and more. Current positions of trust include: UIA 2023 Copenhagen Advisory Committee; Scale Denmark Advisory; COurban Advisory. @IFHPKnowledge, @People4Cities