Build Back Better

Diseases shape cities just as much as immigration or industry.

London’s Embankment was a Victorian innovation designed to disguise a state-of-the-art sewage system built to replace the city’s festering open drains after repeated cholera outbreaks. And New York’s iconic skyline was partially constructed to mitigate the spread of airborne tuberculosis through internal air shafts and large, central squares.

In 2020, as countries steadily emerge from lockdown and grapple with how to thaw out their economies, the Covid-19 pandemic presents a similar opportunity to reimagine urban societies, making them greener, more sustainable, and fairer for all.

Cleaner air, cleaner future

Interconnected hubs like London, New York, and Hong Kong have been worryingly effective vectors for the virus and have borne the brunt of its impacts.

But while Covid-19 might have temporarily slowed immigration to these cities, evidence from past epidemics indicates that it will surge again once the outbreak passes.

In fact, the UN has predicted that by 2050, 68% of the world's population will live in urban areas. Sustainable urbanisation is a key concern, therefore, of local and national governments, especially in light of clear links between air pollution and Covid-19 deaths.

An analysis of Covid-19 fatalities in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany revealed that 78% occurred in the five administrative regions with the highest levels of air pollution. While in America, a Harvard University study covering 98% of the population found that a small rise in fine particle pollution over the two previous decades was linked to a 15% rise in the Covid-19 death rate.

During lockdown, pollution has fallen dramatically as vehicles idle on driveways and travel restrictions have reduced the number of flights globally. Skies are clearer, roads quieter, and birdsong is as likely to wake you as an alarm clock.

In Oxford city centre, the Council reported a 59% reduction in levels of toxic NOx compared to pre-lockdown levels -- a reduction not seen in living memory, and perhaps since the days of the horse and cart.

“Clean air will be a massive driver,” predicts Davenport. “Cleaning up the air in our cities and reducing the potential for transferring the virus will be a core part of what governments try to put first.”

Air pollution is not the only sustainability-related challenge that needs to be addressed as cities recover, though. Covid-19 has thrown into relief how interdependent and fragile global networks of medicine, food, and trade are.

Many governments see increased localism and resilience as key to not only managing this pandemic, but also tackling future crises.

“The main lesson we can take [from the pandemic] is that preventive action is very important,” says climate activist and Extinction Rebellion spokesperson, Sophia Kianni. “We need to apply the same logic to the climate crisis – the sooner we act, the less destructive the long-term impacts will be.”

Go local

The pandemic has also shown the profound benefits of active citizenship.

“Big national efforts might disappear quite quickly,” says Will Butler-Adams, the managing director of Brompton Bikes, “but on a smaller scale, they will have a lasting impact. People now know others in their communities – that’s a really positive thing to have come out of this.”

He points out that many citizens might be suspicious of central governments, especially if their policies (or oversights) have been seen to allow large numbers of avoidable deaths. By contrast, he argues that the local bonds forged during adversity will last as “the fear isn’t going to go away in a few months.”

Aided by apps and social networks, community schemes and mutual aid groups have proliferated during the crisis.

This has been especially marked in cities, where a few months ago the idea of knowing your neighbour – let alone helping them with the shopping – would once have been alien.

“City residents are becoming aware of desires that they didn’t realise they had before, which is for more human contact, for links to people who are unlike themselves,” said Richard Sennett, a senior advisor to the UN on climate change and cities, in an interview with The Guardian.

The pandemic has accelerated a generational shift in attitudes to communal action.

In 2017, 68% of 16-24-year-olds reported that creating positive change in the world was a personal goal. The worldwide School Strikes for Climate movement indicates that many are willing to put that ambition into practice. Cities are likely to succeed in rebuilding in a greener, fairer way if they allow that ground-up passion to flourish.

Extinction Rebellion draws on the history of nonviolent civil protest to argue that only 3% of a population needs to mobilise to put sufficient pressure on governments to act. The pandemic, they suggest, has shown what communities are capable of.

“Every single person has their own network that connects us to millions,” observes Kianni. “We’ve seen we are able to mobilise a large amount of public support.”

The new office

Already there are signs the pandemic has upended the way we work – and therefore travel to work.

For many, commuting now means rolling out of bed; shoes and trousers are strictly optional. Twitter has said its employees can now work from home permanently if they wish. For office workers, flexible hours and workspaces will become far more common – and for plenty of employers their gleaming inner-city headquarters will start to look like costly white elephants.

“What is office space going to be for in the future?” asks Davenport. “I anticipate it will be a creative hub, and you’ll go home to work.”

But this decline in commuting workers will be a hard blow to already battered city-centre service industries.

Research by University of California, Berkeley, has found that each of the ‘knowledge jobs’ that make global cities like London and New York such a success supports five service jobs, from lawyers to spin-class instructors. Those businesses will not easily recover. The High Street may be irreparably changed.

Hollingsworth predicts: “City centres will be even more about leisure and less about retail than they were before. They will be cleaner, more intimate spaces.”

It is likely they will be quieter and greener, too. Subscription models for bikes, e-trikes and e-scooters are likely to boom. These schemes help to drive down the steep upfront cost of these products, encouraging more users – and democratising sustainable transport.

“Currently, the financial barriers to ownership are too high,” believes Will Butler-Adams, Managing Director of Brompton Bikes. “You don’t go to the gym and drop £600 upfront. We live in a society now where people expect to pay for what they use.”

City authorities around the world are looking at ways of interlinking climate and health policy. In Oxford city centre, for instance, plans are afoot for an outdoor café culture, modelled those on the continent. Extra pavement space will be requisitioned from loading bays and parking spots during shopping hours. Pedestrian-only streets, as well as more bus and cycle lanes, will become the norm. The city's infrastructure will focus less on vehicles, and more on people.