This masks another problem, there is a pretence of public space in the UK. In effect people were criminalised for being poor and having to use a park. This use of parks was seen as problematic in places and people complained about the lockdown restriction breakers rather than addressing the real issue of lack of living space, gardens and affordable housing. Some people created interventions or modified their space, creating a sense of ownership or investment. This was for several reasons, including the reduced risk of transmission, the lack of gardens and the density of housing meaning people occupied parks and public spaces in a way not seen in recent times. One of the surprising aspects of Covid was the move to increased use of outdoor spaces. It is not surprising the Finns have come out as the happiest nation for the last few years. You can get a ticket to the Opera or Ice Hockey with your library card too. It demonstrates the importance of culture in society. Together with the square outside the library it really is a public space that welcomes people and democratises the knowledge and access to making and technology. The only complaint you hear about Oodi is that it could do with a few more books.
#CITIES SKYLINES ALL CITIZENS SICK FREE#
People are encouraged to go in and relax, talk, eat, use the free technology, including 3D printers, large format printers, sewing machines etc, go to a free film, use the recording studios for sound or vision. In Helsinki the city library, Oodi, is a ‘living room’ for the city. In 2019 Oslo was the green capital city of Europe and designing with climate change in mind is essential. In Oslo there is a statute that everyone has to live within a certain distance to a park. The garden cities of Adelaide and Christchurch, the harbour spaces in Wellington and Copenhagen where the harbour spaces encourage you to swim with diving platforms and steps to get out rather than criminalising swimming or positioning it as an unwelcome social nuisance as I have experienced in the UK. I have been lucky to live in some amazing cities where I have felt cared for on a civic level and where the urban experience of those who live and importantly have their ‘home’ there are considered. It may sound like I am suggesting some utopian state or am delusional or on drugs with such talk, but what I say is true, if not talked about. There are many modern housing developments without schools or shops or libraries or any community orientated buildings and facilities. Roads, parking spaces and paraphernalia for the automobile take priorities. Individual citizens are largely ignored or not considered.
We don’t design our towns and cities for people. It aimed to capture the primary benefits of countryside and city while avoiding the disadvantages of both.
At the end of the 1890’s Ebenezer Howard initiated the Garden City Movement. Nor do we have a plan or structure to ensure people are satisfactorily catered for and looked after from cradle to grave. No cohesive thinking around how best to plan our urban environments to benefit those who live there. In the UK there is no joined up idea of planning. It has further highlighted the underlying inequalities which are endemic within society and supported or reinforced by systemic approaches to the provision or withholding of medical treatment or social interventions. As we ease out of lockdown into what some refer to as the ‘new normal’ we are being forced to face up to the legacy of Covid on the impact upon health and wellbeing. Cities are conflicted and contested spaces, more so now in the post vaccinated proto-pandemic world. Individuals and ‘the system’ have little resilience left. We are entering the post Covid world after more than 10 years of austerity.