Cities around the world are busy rethinking the role of roads following protracted lockdowns. After a mass exodus of cars, many cities have turned main streets into pedestrian and distanced-entertainment zones. Pedestrianised pop-up parks are on the increase in all major cities, creating new open spaces and improving the environment. By Kinder Baumgardner, courtesy ASLA.
Plymouth, UK has already started letting the weeds grow in its parks. Courtesy Plymouth Herald.
Washington, US. July 2020. As the coronavirus pandemic has worn on, many cities have seen their inhabitants adopt parks and neighborhood streets as safe spaces. This will not be a short-lived phenomenon – bikes have been repaired, running shoes purchased, and puppies adopted. People are growing accustomed to spending time in the outdoors to exercise, spend time with family, enjoy nature – and take that puppy for walks. Innately, we understand that engaging with nature and green space is an innate instinct for city dwellers during times of illness. While those using parks and streets today are not expecting a nature cure, they do experience a renewed comfort in these spaces.
At the same time, city and state budgets are being ravaged by COVID-19-imposed economic shutdowns. Hotel and restaurant taxes are not being collected. Sales taxes are miniscule. Property taxes will likely drop as high unemployment numbers linger. All of this is happening while governments are increasing spending on health-related costs and managing their response to the pandemic.
Parks and recreation are typically among the first government departments to have their funding cut when budgets get tight. So at a time when the public will rightfully be demanding more open spaces, our parks departments will be unable to marshal the funds to maintain existing open spaces as they did before, much less deliver new parks.
People will be able to get closer to wildlife. Courtesy Sarah Welch
I believe that this disconnect will be resolved through the rewilding of many major cities. A lack of public money for parks will result in an unkempt, rambling, and wild style of park “design” created in an organic, vernacular character.
London’s Soho neighbourhood, for example, has been closed to cars to allow for pop-up beer gardens and restaurant terraces, while Oakland in California has converted almost 10% of its roads into dedicated space for bicycles and pedestrians. Berlin already introduced 22km of pop-up bike lanes and converted Danneckerstrasse in Friedrichshain into a pop-up Klimastrasse park with 20 trees in the newly pedestrianised zone.
Like the home-made masks worn by many working to “flatten the curve,” our small-scale, randomly rewilded spaces will create a new urban aesthetic born out of found land that is low-design and has a local do-it-yourself appeal. This new aesthetic will provide more comfort and delight than current design trends offer. The result: lively and wild.
Berlin’s Danneckerstrasse has been closed to all vehicular traffic. Courtesy Monocle.
In some ways, this transformation is already beginning with the conversion of public infrastructure to socially-distanced outdoor dining and socialising space. Cities have closed streets and allowed retail and F&B outlets to colonise spaces once dedicated to vehicles. Makeshift dining terraces and outdoor bars – some stylish, others functional; all cheap, fast, and locally inspired — are transforming the streets. Parking lots have become everything from gyms to outdoor clothing boutiques. Some say this is the beginning of a tipping point; one where cities will invite communities to use the same “can-do” spirit within their parks and open spaces. We could very well see feral green agglomerations that pop up across numbers of cities and suburbs. Residents will benefit from their habitat patches, stormwater storage, carbon sequestration, and makeshift community gathering areas.
As viral hot spots continue to impose work-from-home or reduced hours, workers with new found free time will spend it in the community gardens and on neighborhood exercise trails. Pandemic survivors will find solitary comfort in forest bathing rituals as they enter these spaces for a moment of stress relief and sanitary sanity. Native species will come back to colonise these spaces and thrive; children will build forts and clubhouses; and communities will co-opt them as gyms and meeting space.
If we play it right, cities can benefit from the post-corona hiatus.