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Our ability to address & overcome the public health crisis is directly connected to the built environment, particularly the public realm The public realm links our lives to those of others; provides the means for commerce; and, includes our open spaces...
...corridors of transportation & communication It is the stage upon which life performs itself & at this time, it needs to be relied upon for its most meaningful purpose, to support community health and wellbeing. Town Councilors, engineers, economic development professionals...
...& planners need to reimagine, recalibrate, and rebuild our public realm with this in mind. And just executing existing pre-COVID retrofit solutions & temporary pop-up use programs w-out reflecting on their characteristics & results isn't good enough...
... It's not good enough just expand “parklet” programs to increase seating areas for restaurants in on-street parking spaces because it transfers more of the public realm into private pay-for-access control & maintains economic challenges for businesses because of seating...
...capacity limits based on social distancing requirements It's also not good enough to just add cycling infrastructure improvements for recreation & transportation because they are generally most beneficial to persons that are able-bodied...
...And “open streets” programs which increase access to outdoor spaces, are also not good enough because they can create problems for social distancing and do not increase the diversity of experiences they people need at this time for mental and physical health. We need to do...
...better. Post-COVID neighbourhood-focused interventions to our streets/public realm need to be more profound & grounded in the best proven practices in urban design & understanding of human factors, relationships & behaviour in urban settings. They need to improve our...
... neighbourhoods with sensitivity & understanding to create well functioning spaces specifically designed for people to safely return to public life. We need to include: meaningful access to nature through landscape interventions; spaces that are accessible for all...
...facilitate social distancing; and provide access to PPE. We need better solutions, not just more of the same. Those of us that are community builders must rise to match this challenge with all our skills, tempered & honed by humility & empathy Anything less is unacceptable.
