Density or distance?

How Covid-19 will affect urban planning

Lecture by Karin Raith, 28 Sept. 2020, URBAN TALKS
organised by Farnaz Arefian, Silk Cities platform and The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL (University College London)

Covid-19 has shaken some certainties, such as our ideas of the dense city. On the one hand, it requires caution to keep a distance to potential carriers of the virus, on the other hand it is precisely the density of interactions that makes the city what it is. If we don’t want to throw all the planning principles of recent years overboard, how can we react to the threat? What does the new situation mean for the design of public spaces? Do we have to rethink our concepts for housing? Is the city now going completely digital? Is there a systemic connection between the causes of the climate crisis and the causes of the pandemic? The presentation provides some thoughts and suggestions.