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| newyorker.com |
Hello Everyone:
A very happy start of the week to you all. Blogger's good mood is tinged with sadness over the death of United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Ginsburg was a true patriot, a champion for gender equality before the law, a scholar, advocate, loving wife to her late husband and fellow lawyer Martin Ginsburg, and devoted mother to her children Jane and James. As a lawyer, she argued that the Fourteen Amendment to The Bill of Rights also provided equal protection and due process on the basis of gender. This meant that women were equally entitled to make their own medical decisions and determine their own financial histories, forever changing the roles of men and women. Beyond that, she was a pioneer in the legal field during a time when women were the legal secretaries, not the lawyer. Her experiences with gender discrimination galvanized her determination to put an end to it. Her relationship with her husband was true couples goal. They were equals in every way. They supported and nurtured their ambitions. Outside of the court, Justice Ginsburg was an opera lover, even making a cameo appearance in Gaetano Donizetti's The Daughter of the Regiment as the Duchess of Krakenthorp, a humorous speaking role. It was a passion she also shared with her ideological opposite and fellow justice the late Antonin Scalia. Ruth Bader Ginsburg may have been a tiny woman but she was a giant in court. The battle is on to replace her and The Candidate Forum will be in to talk about it. Onward
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| Vilnius, Lithuania theguardian.com |
Vilnius, Lithuania, like cities around the world, was not sparred from the COVID pandemic. Yet, it is emerging from the pandemic a completely different city. The Lithuanian capital city has remade itself into an open-air cafe, where restaurants and bars have set up tables in plazas, squares, and streets, to serve customers in a very socially distant manner. There was a short-lived drive-in movie theater in the city's idle airport. Next month, the municipal government will ban most cars from its Old Town, to provide more space for pedestrians. Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Simasius spoke to The Atlantic,
We planned it for next year... (theatlantic.com; June 9, 2020; date accessed Sept. 21, 2020)
However, with country still in lock down during the month of June and outdoor space at a premium, he said that speeding up endeavor seemed natural (Ibid).
Vilnius is one example out of many cities remaking themselves in anticipation of a post-COVID world. From creating more walkable streets, to re-purposing public spaces, cities around the world are re-configuring themselves to address the needs of their citizens during the pandemic. However, as restrictions ease, "the legacy of the coronavirus--and the changes it has inspired in urban spaces--remains unclear" (Ibid). Yasmeen Serhan speculates,
Will this pandemic, like those before it, inspire a new blueprint for urban planning? Or will it drive people away from cities for good? (Ibid)
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| New York City, New York ny.curbed.com |
Although few places have been spared from the pandemic, urban areas have fared the worst. New York City, once the world's epicenter of the pandemic, recorded at least 15 percent of COVID deaths in the United States, despite accounting for 2 percent of the American population (theatlantic.com; June 9, 2020).
London, England logged more than a fifth of COVID deaths in England and Wales. Madrid accounted almost a third in Spain (theatlantic.com; June 9, 2020).
The contemporary city was not designed with highly contagious diseases, like COVID-19, in mind. They are dense and many do not have a lot of green space. Further, many of the benefits of urban dwelling--cultural, public transportation, restaurants and bar, et cetera--require some form of close contact. The pandemic has made these activities dangerous. Cultural venues like museums and theaters are still shuttered. Public transportation is still available but the buses and trains are running at less than capacity, no way of knowing when people will feel comfortable enough to board a bus or train.
History tells that urban development is borne out of plagues. Ms. Serhan muses, "...in a weird way, most urban dwellers (your London-based author included) owe much of how they live to the pandemics of the past" (Ibid). Prior to the 19th-century, cities were absolutely filthy She describes the scene,
...Streets were lined with mud; rivers were thick with human and industrial sewage; and animals, and their waste could be found scattered across town (theatlantic.com; June 9, 2020).
Sorry, did not mean to disgust you with the facts.
Therefore when disease emerged, the conditions were ideal for their rapid spread, laying waste (no pun intended) to the urban population. More facts:
...More than 5,000 people died during the 1793 yellow-fever epidemic in the then-American capital Philadelphia. An 1849 cholera outbreak in London killed more than 10,000 people in three months (theatlantic.com; June 9, 2020).
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| 19th-century London npr.org |
Full disclosure: disease transmission was still largely unknown in the 19th-century, "...public-health officials theorized that the unsanitary conditions of cities, and the foul odors they produced, were to blame" (theatlantic.com; June 9, 2020). As more information became available, more cities began to prioritize water sanitation and overall cleanliness. By the mid-1850s, New York City built a 40-mile aqueduct system and exiled 20,000 pigs from the city. Similar sewer systems were installed in London and Paris. During the same time period, urban planners began to think of other ways to improve the overall health and well-being of cities, eventually leading to the first public parks. There have been some urban silver linings amid the gloom of COVID-19.
The COVID pandemic has already produced some measurable changes. In Athens, Bogota, and Milan streets have been re-configured as bicycle lands, sidewalks have been widened to give people more commuting options while practicing safe social distance (theatlantic.com; June 9, 2020). More examples, in Rotterdam and San Francisco, public spaces have been re-purposed as outdoor retail spaces for hard-hit businesses to safely serve their clientele (theatlantic.com; June 9, 2020). Public parks in Toronto and New York City now feature social distance circles to prevent overcrowding (theatlantic.com; June 9, 2020). Although some of the changes are temporary, others, like sidewalk expansions, could be permanent.
| Social distance circle holland.com |
Truth be told, no one knows exactly how COVID-19 will ultimately re-shape cities, at least not in the long run. Ben Rogers, the director of the think tank Centre for London, told The Atlantic, It's still early days (Ibid). Mr. Rogers suggested "that the most profound changes are likely to appear not in the physical makeup of cities, but rather in how people choose to live in them" (Ibid). One example is the way people work:
Prior to the pandemic, only a small fraction of Britons and Americans had the option to work at home regularly. Those figures necessarily surged as a result of the pandemic, and now employers--among them Twitter and Facebook--have made that option permanent (theatlantic.com; June 9, 2020).
This is not likely to affect jobs that cannot be done remotely, like those in the hospitality and retail sectors. Mr. Rogers did speculate it could nevertheless,
...push the digitalization of our economies and society even further (Ibid)
Further, the shift in work patterns could result in other changes. For example, the expansion of work from home options could mean reduced congestion on public transportation, and could spur people to move out of cities all together. Proof, a recent study by the British real-estate website Rightmove found that over half of Londers' property inquiries for residences outside the British capital, compared with 42-percent the previous year (theatlantic.com; June 9, 2020). Another survey, in the United States, the Harris Poll found that almost 40-percent of American urban dwellers are considering moving to less populated areas because of the pandemic (theatlantic.com; June 9, 2020).
Ben Rogers' own think tank found "...32 percent of Londoners are more likely to continue living in the city after the pandemic, said a mass exodus from cities is unlikely--especially for young people" (Ibid). Mr. Rogers said,
When you're in your 20s, cities play this absolutely crucial role,... It's where people meet, [where] they make their friends, [where] they develop really valuable networks...Culture fuels that. It oils it all. I just can't see all that going away anytime soon (Ibid).
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| Street scene in Seoul, South Korea fodors.com |
Although COVID-19 may have affected urban life for some, the majority of urbanites will tell you that contrary to popular belief, density isn't the problem. Proof, some of densest cities in the world: Seoul, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taipei were able to suppress the pandemic. The bigger public health issues included residential overcrowding, tied to a lack of affordable housing and air pollution (theatlantic.com; June 9, 2020).
Several cities are currently prioritizing measures like more walkable and bicycle-friendly streets as low-hanging fruit (Ibid), according to Roger Keil, a professor of environmental and urban change at York University in Toronto. Prof. Keil told The Atlantic, "city leaders should prioritize more difficult investments, such as public transportation and housing" (Ibid). He also emphasized the importance of looking beyond downtowns. He said,
We need to make those noncentral parts of the city more livable (Ibid)
...using under resourced neighborhoods such as the Paris banlieue and the outskirts of cities like Milan and Berlin as his examples. He continued,
These are the kind of investments... that we need, not only because the next pandemic is just around the corner, but [because] the next thing could be a flood or some other thing that comes and hits us in the age of climate change (theatlantic.com; June 9, 2020).
Whatever reform measures or investments evolve out of the COVID-19, they will be tailored to each specific city--what may work for Vilnius may not work in Los Angeles or London. Mayor Remigijus Simasius said,
Our city is quite dense, but it's not as dense as many megacities or central parts of megacities,... we're dealing with the same virus as all of humanity
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