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The Impact of COVID-19 on Public Space: a Review of the Emerging Questions

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The Impact of COVID-19 on Public Space: A Review of the Emerging Questions

Jordi Honey-Rosés1*, Isabelle Anguelovski2,3, Josep Bohigas4, Vincent Chireh5, Carolyn Daher6, Cecil Konijnendijk7 , Jill Litt,6 Vrushti Mawani1, Michael McCall8, Arturo Orellana9, Emilia Oscilowicz1, Ulises Sánchez10, Maged Senbel1, Xueqi Tan11, Erick Villagomez1, Oscar Zapata12, Mark Nieuwenhuijsen6

1School of Community and Regional Planning University of British Columbia. 1933 West Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2 Canada. 2 Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) Bellaterra, Spain. 3 Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain. 4 Barcelona Regional, C/ 60, 25-27. Edifici Z. Sector A. Zona Franca, 08040 Barcelona, Spain. 5 Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability, University of British Columbia. 2202 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4 Canada. 6 IS Global, Institute for Global Health, Doctor Aiguader 88, Barcelona 08003 Spain. 7 Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia. 2424 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada. 8 Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia, Mexico. 9 Instituto de Estudios Urbanos y Territoriales, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile. 10 Independent Consultant, Morelia, Mexico. 11 School of Humanities, Southeast University. No. 2, Southeast University Road, Jiangning District, Nanjing, 211189, China. 12 Department of Economics, University of Regina. 3737 Wascana Parkway, Regina, SK S4S 0A2 Canada.

*Corresponding Author: [email protected]

Abstract Restrictions on the use of public space and social distancing have been key policy measures to reduce the transmission of SAR-CoV-2 and protect public health. At the time of writing, one half of the world’s population has been asked to stay home and avoid many public places. What will be the long term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on public space once the restrictions have been lifted? The depth and extent of transformation is unclear, especially as it relates to the future design, use and perceptions of public space. This article aims to highlight emerging questions at the interface of COVID-19 and city design. It is possible that the COVID-19 crisis may fundamentally change our relationship with public space. In the ensuing months and years, it will be critical to study and measure these changes in order to inform urban planning and design in a post-COVID-19 world.

Keywords: COVID-19, Design, Planning, Public space.

Citation Honey-Roses, J., Anguelovski, I., Bohigas, J., Chireh, V., Daher, C., Konijnendijk, C., … Nieuwenhuijsen, M. (2020, April 21). The Impact of COVID-19 on Public Space: A Review of the Emerging Questions. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/rf7xa

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Introduction

Restrictions on the use of public space, confinement and social distancing have been key policy measures to reduce transmission of SAR-CoV-2 and protect public health. We are currently in the midst of unprecedented restrictions in the use of public spaces worldwide. Half of the world’s population has been asked to stay at home or restrict movement in public (Sandford, 2020). Most people are complying with public health recommendations as evident in the striking images of empty city streets, parks, beaches, plazas and promenades. Cities well-known for their active street life such as New York, Rome or Barcelona now appear ghostly as city-dwellers stay home for the collective public good.
In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, we feel the sting of having lost our familiar, vibrant, social and lively public places. We write from different locations1 where the pandemic is in different phases and our respective cities have implemented different measures: full lockdown; recommended stay at home measures, and one co-author is in Wuhan where public space is re-opening. While some are us are prohibited from being in public unless performing an essential service, others are able to enjoy some parks and green areas. Despite these different experiences, we share an uncertainty about what lies ahead and fear that our sense of place and space may be permanently transformed. When we venture outside our homes, we observe unfamiliar and distant social interactions, raising questions about how social relations in public spaces may be changing.
Planners, designers, architects, landscape managers and journalists are already writing about how this crisis will transform our relationship with public space (Alter, 2020; Florida, 2020; Null and Smith, 2020; Roberts, 2020; van der Berg, 2020). We are still in the early stages of the crisis and it is likely we will be adapting to an evolving global pandemic in the next eighteen months. It will still be weeks until many of us will be able to return to our public spaces, but it is not too early to think about how our professions may have changed or need to adapt.
There is great uncertainty about how COVID-19 will impact future public space design, use and perceptions. How will our relationship with public space change? How long will the changes endure? What is the relationship between public space design and disease transmission? Will the new social behaviours we observe today remain or be ephemeral? Will people’s emotional connections with places change? How will the benefits we derive from urban nature change? Will the pandemic teach us new lessons to incorporate into our street designs? Is the attention devoted to COVID-19 distracting us from the existential challenges of sustainability and climate change? Or, optimistically, will this global experience lead us to rethink the way we develop and (re)design our cities?
Many scholars and public observers are weighing in on these important questions (Florida,
2020; Markusen, 2020; Roberts, 2020). The contours of this debate are just beginning to emerge. This article aims to summarize preliminary research questions, ideas and conjectures about how the COVID-19 crisis might change our relationship with public space. We recognize the great uncertainty associated with the ideas put forward. The author Eugene Ionesco once said “You can only predict things after they have happened”. Nevertheless, our focus is on what the world might be like once the pandemic has passed and the restrictions on the use of public space and social distancing policies have been lifted. We understand that cities may go through more than one peak of the virus outbreak, thereby producing an extended period of social distancing (Kissler et al., 2020). This paper

1 This article has been produced by co-authors located in Ahmedabad (India), Barcelona (Spain), Morelia (Mexico), Regina (Canada), Santiago (Chile), Vancouver (Canada) and Wuhan (China).

2tries to think beyond the current measures to consider which changes will stay with us once the immediacy of the pandemic has passed.
As co-authors, we do not necessarily agree on what the future may hold, nor is consensus our aim. Rather, we aim to raise the critical new questions that have emerged as a result of our current global health crisis in order to guide future research and policy.

Will the impact on public space be transformational?

The size, scope and speed of the crisis make it feel like we are living through a profound transformation. It is as if we are experiencing a tectonic shift, where the ground is moving beneath us, changing the fundamental principles and rules that have governed our practice. Periods of stability can be interrupted by sudden breaks with rapid change. Evolutionary biologists refer to the theory of punctuated equilibrium, in which evolutionary changes are not cumulative and gradual, but rather transpire in specific moments (Gould and Eldredge, 1993). Thomas Kuhn conceptualizes these changes as paradigm shifts (Kuhn, 1962). These breaking moments are opportunities to embark on radically new and bold projects. One might conceptualize this moment as a potential counter shock to disaster capitalism (Klein, 2007). These moments re-define what is acceptable or radical, shifting what policy makers call the Overton window (Crabtree, 2020; Lehman, 2019). These periods create opportunities to carry out endeavors previously thought impossible but now are feasible or necessary. When in the midst of this change, which lessons from the past can we still grab onto and what previous understanding must we discard?
It is unclear if the impacts of COVID-19 on public space will be as profound as they are in other aspects of our life (Corbera et al., 2020). In the realm of public space and design, a key question concerns how long these impacts will be felt, and the degree to which they will be transformational. It may take years before we are able to ascertain how the global pandemic has changed the planning and design of public space. Will 2020 define a before and after in planning and design?
Perhaps such predictions are clouded by the immediacy of the moment. Rather than a profound transformation, perhaps the pandemic will merely refine our practices, yet leave our fundamental approaches and values unchanged. Our respective disciplines have already created a deep body of knowledge, understanding and methods for studying public space. COVID-19 is not our first pandemic, nor is this the first time planning and design has focused on improving public health. Improving the sanitary conditions of cities motivated planners, architects and engineers to re-design cities in the late 19th century (Sennett, 2018). Since the 1990s there has been a resurgent interest in work at the nexus of health and urban planning, and the field has become a well-established area of expertise, with an active scholarly community and focused academic journals with strong repute. This field is nourished by scholars from diverse disciplines such as public health, environmental psychology, planning, and landscape architecture. Seen from this perspective, we should be able to build on existing expertise to update our practices and adapt. Better yet, COVID-19 may present an opportunity to integrate a health perspective into planning in new ways.
Many disciplines are likely to refocus their attention on how they interface with public health.
But how will these new ideas be integrated into practice? And how might we leverage the crisis to build more just, healthier and greener cities? Below we review the key dimensions of this debate as it refers to public space which we define as a geographical dimension in which there exists free, legal, unbiased access for all (Benn and Gauss, 1983; Carr et al., 1992; Lawrence, 2001). While there are many potential impacts of COVID-19 on land use, urban density, telecommuting, energy, transportation, retail, and so forth, our focus is on how the current pandemic may change
3public space. Our list of emerging questions is extensive but not exhaustive. We also anticipate circumstances to change between the time of writing and reading. Things are moving fast.

Table 1. Summary of the emerging questions about how the COVID-19 episode may change the design, use, behaviours and perceptions in public space.

Design
1. Will streets be re-designed? 2. Will the pandemic accelerate the mainstreaming of health criteria into the design of public spaces? 3. Will green space planning need new designs, uses and practices? 4. What is the future of large public spaces? 5. Do we need a new typology for public space? 6. Will the temporary transformations seen during the crisis inspire more permanent changes? 7. What will happen to micro-mobility and mobility sharing? 8. What will be the impacts on public transit?

Perceptions, Use and Behaviour
9. Will we observe fewer people in public? 10. Will we change what we do in public? 11. Will our intuitive carrying capacity for public spaces decrease? 12. Will we observe changes in the use and regulation of interior public spaces? 13. Will we experience infringements on civil liberties? 14. Will our perceptions of public space change?

Inequities and Exclusions
15. How will the needs of vulnerable groups such as women, racial minorities, immigrants, low-income residents, the elderly, children and the homeless be accounted for in future public space designs, practices, and rules? 16. Will cities in the Global South attempt to constrain or regulate the informal street economy? 17. Will the pandemic permanently disrupt the interconnected global settlement system?

Emerging questions on the impact of COVID-19 on public space Impacts on the Design of Public Space

1. Will streets be re-designed?

Optimists argue that COVID-19 is an opportunity for city planners to liberate more street space for pedestrians and cyclists, moving us closer to greener cities and a low carbon economy (Nieuwenhuijsen, 2020; Roberts, 2020). In the early days of the crisis there was considerable discussion about the need to widen sidewalks and re-design pedestrian crossings in order to meet social distancing recommendations (Alter, 2020). Famously, New York City was talking about making such a move (Bliss, 2020), however Milan appears to be the first to announce permanent changes, with the widening of sidewalks, 35 km of new bike lanes and the removal of lanes for vehicles (EFE,

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2020). Other cities such as Boston, London, Portland and Vancouver have begun reconfiguring streets to accommodate for more cyclists and pedestrians over longer distances (Hawkins, 2020; Topham, 2020).

Sidewalks in the Global South tend to be crowded, irregular, if they exist at all. Sidewalks are occupied by street vendors, pavement dwellers and a range of informal activities. In India, the social distancing measures announced have meant ‘jugaad’2 style appropriations of streets. In efforts to direct social distancing while queuing, sidewalks leading to shops have been marked with yellow circles a meter and a half apart. Cities in both the Global North and South may need to consider adding more space to accommodate for new queuing norms at the entrances of shops, services and public facilities.

It now appears that an extended phase of social distancing will be put into effect once the stay at home measures have been lifted. This period may invite cities to implement low cost and temporary street calming and pedestrianization projects, potentially following principles of tactical urbanism (Lydon and Garcia, 2015). Cities might revisit Barcelona’s superblock model, in which vehicular traffic is redirected in and out of the neighbourhood in a U-turn preventing non-residents from traversing a neighbourhood but still allowing local access (Rueda, 2019; Speranza, 2018). Barcelona has already developed several superblocks and has made plans to expand them over the city grid (Zografos et al., 2020).

Streets might need to be re-designed to meet other emerging needs besides social distancing. Online shopping and home food delivery have taken off, creating a huge demand for drop off and delivery space. This increase demand for curb space may force us to re-visit our ideas about curbside street parking, not only to meet new delivery needs, but also to free space for pedestrians.

Any future changes to street design will be politically fraught. Re-designs are contentious and likely to remain so. It also is unclear which cities will be able to act on the re-design ideas being proposed, and if so, how quickly. The space restrictions will not change, and there will still be a competition for right of way. The redesign and repurposing will also still depend on broader challenges such as individual transportation choices and regional transit funding.

2. Will the pandemic accelerate the mainstreaming of health criteria into the design of public spaces?

Including health considerations in the design of public space is not new, yet it is far from mainstream (Nieuwenhuijsen and Khreis, 2019; Nieuwenhuijsen, 2016). Other perspectives have had a greater acceptance amongst urban planners and designers, especially participatory approaches (Blancafort and Reus, 2015; Rowe, 2004) and feminist planning (Ortiz Escalante and Gutiérrez Valdivia, 2015). The inclusion of health criteria in public space design is still incipient, even if several authors have worked on tools that may assist planners and designers to conceptualize, design and build with a health perspective (Bird et al., 2018; Public Health Scotland, 2019). It remains to be seen how these ideas are mainstreamed and what physical form they will take.

2 Roughly translated in English as a resourceful, innovative approach of “making do” given the emergent needs and multiple constraints shaping any context. For more on this, see (Roy, 2011)

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Street re-designs that free space for pedestrians and active mobility can help meet several public health objectives, notably through physical activity and the reduction of pollution exposure. The health arguments for active mobility have existed for years (Nieuwenhuijsen et al., 2019; Saelens et al., 2003), but have not always received the attention they deserve. In a post-COVID-19 world, will stakeholders take the health arguments in planning more seriously? And most importantly, will they succeed in transforming streets to become healthier, safer, greener and more livable?

3. Will green space planning need new designs, uses and practices?

A pivot toward healthy cities is likely to be accompanied by a more serious effort to make cities greener. Yet the pandemic may change the type and distribution of green spaces we want, as well as our expectations about what green spaces should provide. We foresee a greater demand for smaller green spaces or neighbourhood parks which serve as places of refuge from the louder and bustling city. These places of refuge might be preferred whether or not they are green or grey, a small park or an alley.

Our changing preferences and expectations about green spaces may lead to new designs, uses and practices in green space planning. For example, green space designers might need to create more spaces for individualized and introspective use over team sports. Running trails and paths might be widened. And new expectations regarding social distancing may require re-assessing where individuals might be able to exercise within green spaces. We also might need new or expanded exercise infrastructure given that existing green spaces may not be able to absorb the influx of people at the revised levels of appropriate density.

In cities with stay at home orders, we have observed more use of green spaces, especially the small neighbourhood parks, which seem to be undergoing a renaissance (van der Berg, 2020). Will planners begin to prioritize the design of smaller local, neighbourhood green spaces? Cities with an existing decentralized network of small green spaces such as Valencia (Spain) or Nantes (France) will be better prepared to provide easily accessible opportunities for the enjoyment of nature. From a biodiversity perspective, continuous networks of green spaces will still be more valuable than isolated patches (Forman, 1995). Yet a decentralized network of smaller green spaces will make it easier for residents to have their 'daily dose' of nature. Even visual access to nature has been shown to have important physical and mental health benefits (Velarde et al., 2007).

Ample scientific literature has documented the health benefits of green spaces, although there is still work being done to understand the mechanisms and pathways that explain improved health outcomes (Gascon et al., 2015; Rojas-Rueda et al., 2019; van den Bosch and Ode Sang, 2017). Social interactions have been identified as a major pathway in which greenspaces improve health (De Vries et al., 2013; Litt et al., 2015). The degree to which the social pathway is able to generate health benefits in green spaces in the future may need re-consideration or nuancing.

In the aftermath of the crisis, cities may revisit the potential of unused spaces such as brownfield sites and building rooftops. Cities have a staggering amount of rooftops that are underused, poorly equipped and not meeting their full potential. Chicago has led the way (DiNardo, 2019; Francis and Jensen, 2017), and Barcelona has identified thousands of grey rooftops, of which only a few have been converted into rooftop gardens (Sanyé-Mengual et al., 2016). Community gardens also provide an alternative to public parks, and may develop rules on safe distancing. These
6spaces, whether in the sky or on the ground, are likely to receive renewed attention as open air refuges for stress relief, recreation, cultural activities and socialization among tight networks.

4. What is the future of large public spaces?

An obvious potential consequence of COVID-19 is a generalized aversion to large crowds.
Concerts, cultural events, sporting events, ceremonies, markets and political protests all bring together many people, often in public squares and plazas. In the immediate future, these gatherings will be restricted. But will the public develop a permanent aversion to large public gatherings?

Such a shift could have implications for how we design our cities but also have important cultural and political consequences. Large public spaces have provided citizens with a space to organize, form groups, come together and voice political dissent throughout human history. Consider the Zócalo in Mexico City, Tienanmen in Beijing, Madan in Kiev, Tahrir in Cairo, Gezi Park in Istanbul, among others (Luisa Martin, 2014; Özgen, 2014). Turning our backs to these spaces would debilitate our notion of public space as 'agora' and threaten to restrict opportunities for coming together. Will the social, civic and recreational uses of the public realm need to be rediscovered and reinvigorated?

A permanent aversion to large public gatherings might change how cities are designed. Most cities have at least one large space to accommodate for large gatherings. Designers often intentionally avoid placing benches, fountains or other permanent infrastructure in large squares to allow for these gatherings, even if infrequent. This practice could be reversed, premised on other urban needs, and go largely unnoticed.

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    University of Maine School of Law University of Maine School of Law Digital Commons Faculty Publications Faculty Scholarship 2018 The "Publicization" of Private Space Sarah B. Schindler University of Maine School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.mainelaw.maine.edu/faculty- publications Part of the Law and Society Commons, and the Property Law and Real Estate Commons Recommended Citation 103 Iowa L. Rev. 1093 (2018) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at University of Maine School of Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of University of Maine School of Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SCHINDLER_PP_FINAL (DO NOT DELETE) 3/8/2018 1:12 PM The “Publicization” of Private Space Sarah Schindler * ABSTRACT: Recently, many urban areas have moved away from the creation of publicly owned open spaces and toward privately owned public open spaces, or “POPOS.” These POPOS take many forms: concrete plazas that separate a building from the sidewalk; glass-windowed atriums in downtown office buildings; rooftop terraces and gardens; and grass-covered spaces that appear to be traditional parks. This Article considers the nature of POPOS and examines whether they live up to expectations about the role that public space should play and the value it should provide to communities. This analysis is especially important because in embracing POPOS, cities have made a tradeoff—they allow developers to construct larger buildings in exchange for the provision of this publicly accessible (yet still privately owned) space.
  • How Public Is Public Space?

    How Public Is Public Space?

    UARXXX10.1177/10780874 44644512446445NémethUrban Affairs Review © The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Urban Affairs Review XX(X) 1 –25 Controlling the © The Author(s) 2012 Reprints and permission: Commons: How Public sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1078087412446445 Is Public Space? http://uar.sagepub.com Jeremy Németh1 Abstract In this paper, I outline and test a framework for analyzing control and free- dom in urban public space. The framework, based on a model of the com- mons developed by legal scholar Lawrence Lessig, assesses control across three layers: physical, code, and content. I deploy the framework in a case involving a controversial proposal to erect a six-foot-high iron fence around Philadelphia’s iconic Independence National Historical Park. The framework proves a robust conceptual and operational means for analyzing how intended actions impact personal and group freedoms. Keywords public space, commons, urban design, control, security How Public Is Public Space? Some urban scholars argue that prioritizing security and private interests over broader social concerns can threaten civil liberties and diminish diver- sity in public space, transforming public spaces into highly regulated sites of consumption-based activity (Graham 2010; Low and Smith 2006; Németh and Hollander 2010a). Associated curbs on behavior are seen to limit civil liberties, like the right to protest, dissent, make decisions, be heard, be home- less, or not consume (Mitchell 2003); others show how regulatory practices 1University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA Corresponding Author: Jeremy Németh, Planning and Design, Director, Master of Urban Design Program, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO 80217 Email: [email protected] Downloaded from uar.sagepub.com at Auraria Library on June 4, 2012 2 Urban Affairs Review XX(X) often homogenize, sanitize, and exorcise difference from public space (Sorkin 1992).
  • Public Space Site-Specific Assessment

    Public Space Site-Specific Assessment

    Public space site-specific assessment Guidelines to achieve quality public spaces at neighbourhood level Copyright © United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) 2020 All rights reserved United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) P.O. Box 30030 00100 Nairobi GPO KENYA Tel: 254-020-7623120 (Central Office) www.unhabitat.org DISCLAIMER The designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries regarding its economic system or degree of development. Excerpts may be reproduced without authorization, on condition that the source is indicated. Views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, the United Nations and its member states. Cover illustration: Christelle Lahoud © UN-Habitat ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Project supervisor: Cecilia Andersson Principal authors: Chiara Martinuzzi, Christelle Lahoud Contributors: Jose Chong, Lucy Donnelly, Joy Mutai, Dennis Mwaniki, Mark Ojal, Sohel Rana, Maia Smillie, Mitiku Woldesenbet Design and layout: Chiara Martinuzzi, Christelle Lahoud Public space site-specific assessment Guidelines to achieve quality public spaces at neighbourhood level Contents INTRODUCTION 7 The Global Public Space
  • Becoming Public: Library Design and the Creation of Public Space

    Becoming Public: Library Design and the Creation of Public Space

    Volume 8 – Spring 2012 djim.management.dal.ca Becoming Public: Library Design And The Creation Of Public Space Abstract: Public library design is an important realm within which the role and philosophy of the public library as a public space is communicated. This paper analyzes various readings of public library designs and further analyzes the topic by considering the use of these built spaces by library patrons. The interaction between library users and the library design is revealing of both the contradictory nature of public space and the ways in which the library is being understood and reimagined. The public interpretation of the principles communicated through library design is revealing of the value of contemporary public space, which is currently being challenged by the encroaching role of commercial establishments. This paper concludes that libraries, as public spaces, play a significant role in the creation of civic society. About the Author(s): Megan Clark is a graduate student in the Masters of Library and Information Science program at Dalhousie University. Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management Introduction The design of the ominous and impressive Library of Congress includes a central reading room contained in a domed enclosure at the heart of the building. The reader must traverse to the center of the building to call upon its resources. Collins (2009) notes that depth connotes power and the deeper the readers go into the building the closer they get to accessing the full power of the institution. This building design literally reflects the philosophical goals and character of the Library of Congress. In the average community branch, it is not likely that patrons will be demanding access to the centrally located furnace room in the basement in order to harness the power of the institution.