Subject Matters III

"Place" on the post-pandemic campus (2021) Late summer 2021, U.C. Berkeley: The pandemic we thought was behind us has returned to torment us as variants. The students have returned and are likely to pass these variants back and forth. Most of those stricken will suffer what amounts to a bad flu—but, given the size of the campus population, we can expect some deaths. For once, the campus is ahead of the region’s tech industry, which put the brakes on a return to physical workplaces. Debates continue about the costs and benefits of working remotely.

The university is engaged with two large housing projects south and west of the campus proper, along with a new college replacing Tolman Hall opposite Arch Street along Hearst Avenue. All three reflect current thinking on academic development, which is to say that all three look back more than they look around or ahead. Given that buildings like this are intended to last for generations—Tolman Hall only lasted 70 years, a relatively short lifespan by campus standards—the future in question extends at least to 2100. We’ll be long dead when they get there, but the century’s end is a sober reminder that whatever we build now will still be here then.

Accurately predicting the campus's immediate future in light of the pandemic is challenged by the daunting range of issues that have surfaced. Much that seemed fixed as inherently place-bound proved not to be, and the detachment from place proved liberating in removing brutal commutes and allowing some families to rebalance work with the needs of young children. Others chose to quit cities in search of less expensive options, especially for housing. A new divide opened up between the relatively affluent and those below that crucial, shifting threshold. Climate change, with its attendant extreme weather events, wildfires, and droughts, made some of the moves to the country problematic for the affluent and poor alike.

But the point was made: place matters, but “where” is a looser construct, less justifiably mandatory for participants.

The pandemic revealed two things about a U.C. Berkeley community that had almost entirely shifted online: first, routine collegial engagement went far beyond the normal boundaries of the campus; and second, the introduction of “higher production values” in some talks and lectures, leveraging the medium; and the relative intimacy that the medium itself provided, gave participants a clearer 13