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Pandemica Places: Where Sustaining Community is Key
Let’s talk about the hyperlocal places of Pandemica, where the successes of sustaining community may live or die.
They are on my mind this New Year’s Day, after a long walk in West Berkshire. I saw many local instances of non-compliance with England’s Tier 4 COVID-19 guidelines. I considered the ultimate consequences of this careless behavior on overworked health workers, particularly in Greater London.
Here is an idea. Before we obsess too much about the post-pandemic city, let’s remember that to get there, there are basic ways to assure the safety of our existing pre-vaccination spaces and paths.
One such stage is the corner store (perhaps better known as a convenience store), a landing place for conflicting pandemic realities. They invite those who believe in the 15-minute city of accessible milk and toilet paper. They are walkable stops for people along permitted leave-home, short forays. But they are also the darling place of those who pull up in cars, leave the engine running, and dart inside.
The former players are usually masked, and the latter are often maskless violators of the pandemic protocol.
To the urbanist in search of sustained local, neighborhood life, otherwise infatuated with the trappings of “character” and “authenticity,” the above…
