Never waste a crisis

We know that COVID-19 is impacting us massively, but will it teach us something about how our cities operate?

Most importantly, many people will be very ill, have permanent lung damage and sadly some will die. But it is the economic issues that will have the greatest effect on us in the long term: on business closure, unemployment, mental health and homelessness.

There will be a long-term upheaval in businesses and jobs. Many will cease to exist by the time the pandemic is over. While some activities will grow, particularly anything online, some businesses that are not very profitable now will probably disappear altogether.

In Victoria in particular there is likely to be a significant drop in overseas students. This will result in empty lecture theatres, financial problems for universities and schools and vacancies in inner-city low-end apartments.

But is there something in the nature of our cities that has resulted in our cities being vulnerable to crises?

Latest research by the Brookings Institute show that in the USA the dense, and often economically powerful cities are the ones most hit by the virus. In Australia and the UK, the story is probably much the same.

For decades we have been making our cities denser, particularly to reduce travel distance. But some would argue that this has left us more vulnerable than we need be.

Will there be a shift in our preferences for housing? Will residents see the tight confines of an inner-city apartment more of a risk than a house in the suburbs? Will we change the way we get around, particularly on public transport? An English study found a significant association between respiratory symptoms and public transport use. Presumably private cars are a safer option to avoid infection, but our inner-city roads do not have the capacity to cope with more cars once things settle to the new normal. Will there be a greater focus and demand for localised employment in the suburbs, enabling more people to walk and ride to work from home?

Australian cities, and Melbourne in particular, are heavily centralised. The inner professional and retail job-rich areas are the only ones serviced well by public transport, but they are also heavily dependent on these services. To avoid some of the drawbacks of dense inner-city life: some businesses may choose more flexible suburban locations.

Moving towards a city which doesn’t have all its eggs in one basket and has a better spread of employment will reduce the impact of our overly centralised metropolis. Developing major business clusters such as Monash, will allow more to live closer to where they work. They can have more transport flexibility.

Many retirees will lose substantially, with the state of the share market and possible inflation as the Government seeks to cover their massive expenditure. However, the biggest impact will be the swelling numbers of unemployed and some suburbs will be much more affected than others. Less well-off and growth area suburbs will presumably suffer most as their residents probably have mortgage stress, often jobs that cannot be done from home and have less financial capacity to ride out the bumps that will be coming their way.

We will have a different society when this is through. But it can be a better one. We might make some changes in the way we live, perhaps being closer to our family and neighbours, preparing our own food, better hygiene and exercise habits, less reliance on environmentally disastrous overseas travel and more sustainable ways to get to work.

In a similar vein, in the last couple of weeks we have seen the rapid acceleration of videoconferencing for work and pleasure. It is likely this shift to Zoom rather than roads and trains will continue once the outbreak is over.

The current crisis may be the catalyst that delivers a more sustainable city. One where employment and amenity are more decentralised and closer to where the majority of us live. The Government can assist in this process by supporting projects and businesses in the areas that will be most hard hit and rearranging some of their infrastructure priorities.

A more localised city will be less reliant on long expensive, unsustainable commutes, and will cope better with emergencies as they arise. We will get to know our neighbours, shop locally and work closer to home. This outcome not only promotes resilience in a time of crisis such as COVID-19 but also will give us a diminished carbon footprint to tackle the other emergency of our time: climate change.

But we humans, and our political leaders, have very short attention spans. If our media is anything to go by, we have, at least temporarily, forgotten the all-consuming issues of late last year: bushfires, climate change, and Brexit. When the pandemic passes will its ramifications soon be forgotten, or will we learn lessons from it and make more sustainable and resilient cities?

Peter Seamer’s career has included the planning of new towns in the UK and Australia. He is the former CEO, City of Sydney, Federation Square and the Victorian Planning Authority.

Peterhaswritten“BreakingPoint:TheFutureofAustralian Cities” looking at the need to make Australian cities truly polycentric.

Peter’s website is: howtobuildacity.com peter@seamer.me