{"id":1296,"date":"2021-01-01T18:26:54","date_gmt":"2021-01-01T18:26:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/?p=1296"},"modified":"2021-01-01T18:34:02","modified_gmt":"2021-01-01T18:34:02","slug":"sustaining-community-in-pandemica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/2021\/01\/01\/sustaining-community-in-pandemica\/","title":{"rendered":"Sustaining Community in Pandemica"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Let’s talk about the hyperlocal places of Pandemica<\/a>, where the successes of sustaining community may live or die. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a> with England’s Tier 4 COVID-19 guidelines. I considered the ultimate consequences<\/a> of this careless behavior on overworked health workers, particularly in Greater London. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is an idea. Before we obsess too much about the post-pandemic city<\/a>, let’s remember that to get there, there are basic ways to assure the safety of our existing pre-vaccination spaces and paths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a> 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former players are usually masked, and the latter are often maskless violators of the pandemic protocol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the urbanist in search of sustained local, neighborhood life, otherwise infatuated with the trappings<\/a> of “character” and “authenticity,” the above may seem particularly mundane. But, to me, masks are now acoutrements beyond Jane Jacobs’s sidewalk ballet<\/a>, as much a facet of a safe urban place as her “eyes on the street.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For months, I’ve been dodging people around tight doorways, and in narrow aisles of little shops in several English cities and towns, thinking it a gesture to keep local businesses alive. Along the way, I’ve not hesitated<\/a> to indulge in mini-interviews about the why-no-mask reality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the answers: Silence, dirty looks, “I forgot,” or “I’m just out to get milk home for my kids.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, two days ago, in a community-sustaining experiment, I spent five minutes with two maskless 13-year olds, their bikes and selves blocking the door and sidewalk in front of an otherwise prototypical little store. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We chatted, as follows, in the context of the place:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me: “Have you heard about how in the pandemic it’s important to leave space to protect old guys like me?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young Man #1: ” My Mum does not tell me such things.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young Man #2: “You sound Australian.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me: “American.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young Man #1: “Do you like Donald Trump?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young Man #2: “I do.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me: “No, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I have an idea, why don’t you come over here, stand a few feet out of the way, against this little brick wall, and move your bikes right next to you, here, and then people like me will live another day?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young Men: Looks of realization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then they moved, as I suggested, in a simple community-sustaining way. For me, it was much-needed reassurance that hyperlocal places and interactions are much more relevant to the common good than they sometimes seem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

___<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For other stories of the changing city, see Charles R. Wolfe with Tigran Haas,\u00a0Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character: Principles and Best Practices<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>(Rowman and Littlefield, early 2021).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21],"tags":[674,25,24,5,31,22],"class_list":["post-1296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-character","tag-cities","tag-culture","tag-lifestyle","tag-pandemic","tag-urbanism"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sustainingplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/dsc0185.jpg?fit=1142%2C856&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pc03Hh-kU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1296"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1299,"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1296\/revisions\/1299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}