"First, a strict spatial partitioning: the closing of the town and is outlying districts, a prohibition to leave the town on pain of death, the killing of all stray animals; the division of the town into distinct quarters, each governed by an intendant. Each street is placed under the authority of a syndic, who keeps it under surveillance; if he leaves the street, he will be condemned to death. On the appointed day, everyone is ordered to stay indoors: it is forbidden to leave on pain of death. ... If it is absolutely necessary to leave the house, it will be done in turn, avoiding any meeting. Only the intendants, syndics and guards will move about the streets and also, between the infected houses. ... At each of the town gates there will be an observation post. ...
This surveillance is based on a system of permanent registration: reports from the syndics to the intendants, from the intendants to the magistrates or mayor. ... an uninterrupted work of writing links the centre and periphery, in which power is exercised without division, according to a continuous hierarchical figure, in which each individual is constantly located, examined and distributed among the living beings, the sick and the dead — all this constitutes a compact model of the disciplinary mechanism."
(Foucault M. 1991. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. A. Sheridan, trans. London: Penguin Books. 195-7)
These excerpts from Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison about the quarantine measures introduced during the plague epidemic in Paris in the late 17th century can do a fairly good job of conveying the spirit of today's quarantine restrictions as well. The name of the section has a great significance of its own: Panopticism. Foucault demonstrates how public mechanisms of oversight and control were built, and how power relations were set up through a number of disciplinary practices at the level of individuals' everyday life. Grim as the picture of the total surveillance described by Foucault may look, he does also show the silver lining. It was the very concept of surveillance that was emerging and taking shape at that time which engendered new urbanism practices and strategies of urban planning: division into districts / arrondissements and reorganization of police work.
The current challenges can also trigger changes that will improve the quality of living conditions in the city and ensure their equality. Global experts in urban planning are also discussing these challenges and possible development scenarios. It is too early to speak about ready-to-use recipes. But it is important to sustain the conversation in order to respond to current challenges and be prepared for future ones.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has become a global challenge for humanity at almost all levels and in all areas. Urban planning is no exception. Crises expose weak links and shortcomings and push us to understand the need for change. We believe that this text will support the discussion about the challenges faced by cities and the existing traditions of urban planning.
Outbreaks of infectious diseases has not always meant dramatic changes or transformations in urban planning and urban life. Sometimes, though, the changes were quite prominent.
The tools for controlling citizens' movement emerged in the era of the Black Death. The degree of their effectiveness and expediency was different and conflicts were often unavoidable. The municipal authorities determined which part of the city territory would be accessible or not to most urban residents, and under what conditions. Sometime it was even up to the authorities to decide whether there was an epidemic in the city (as it happened in Sevastopol in 1830). If the residents disagreed and started to rebel, the authorities would convince them otherwise with iron and blood.
Another thing that comes to mind is topography. The need to have a designated place for the infected for a certain period meant that entire areas with relevant names appeared: Quarantine Island (Kherson), Quarantine Bay (Sevastopol), etc. This naturally meant that these locations were isolated from the city and the urban life, even after the restrictive measures were no longer necessary. For instance, the Quarantine Island in Kherson is the Korabel micro-district today, one of the farthest removed areas from the city centre. For objective (the need for a quarantine location) and subjective (the selection of this specific place) reasons, part of the city became fully or partly isolated from its life, and the rights of the citizens to this territory were restricted.
Disease outbreaks also had more constructive consequences, primarily in the sphere of infrastructure. It was the cholera epidemic in Paris (1832) that provoked proposals to demolish the old districts and drove the early proponents of socialism to justify the need to build a broad main road from the Louvre to Bastille and to provide Paris with clean water. The cholera epidemic in Kyiv in 1907–1908 shut the lid on the citizens' belief in clean Dnieper water — from now on, the city would only use water from artesian wells.
These changes reflected the progressivist model of urban development. It is chiefly based on operating "open" spaces — free empty spaces. The constituents here are air, light, and greenery. All of this becomes symbolic of progress, while decreasing the population density gains importance due to the issue of hygiene (Benjamin Richardson, Étienne Cabet, Robert Owen, Charles Fourier).
The importance of free spaces without buildings and of greenery, along with the division into independent functional components, restriction (optimization) of the number of inhabitants, standard accessible residential spaces, organization of transportation and ensuring proper sanitary conditions for the inhabitants all serve as the basis for the modernist urban development ideology.
The ambition to control "disorder," "chaos," "pollution," "contagion," "deviation," "sickness," etc. through spatial and social control (which includes organization and planning) and through regulation and restriction policies can be traced throughout the history of urbanism and governs today's approaches to urban planning.
Current attempts to curb the spread of the coronavirus have highlighted a range of problems. Some of them are obvious: the problem of ensuring mobility within the city, insecurity of workers (both those who cannot work remotely and those suffering from unstable income or lifestyle), access to key social infrastructure and lack of data for making informed decisions. There are also problems that have not been revealed / voiced enough yet: domestic violence, mental health and security and various inequalities intensified by arbitrary approach to urban planning (which is meant to ensure equal opportunities for everyone in the city, including women, children, the elderly, people with reduced mobility and other vulnerable social and ethnic groups).
More detailed information about challenges faced by cities can be found in this article on the website of Heinrich Boell Foundation, Kyiv Office — Ukraine.
We would like to focus on the issue of public spaces in cities. The conversation is now happening around what effectively constitutes a restriction of the right to the city. What does it mean and what challenges emerge as a result?
We believe that today's quarantine practices have highlighted at least four groups of problems.
1. Discourse: how do we define public spaces and what role do they play in cities? The existence of various interpretations of what constitutes a "public space" (which is important in the context of quarantine restrictions) points to the lack of social consensus concerning the meaning of this notion. Evidently, the legislative definition (which can be found in the standard about the prohibition of smoking in public spaces) is inadequate for urban policies not only during the pandemic, but also in the context of development of such spaces to ensure the quality of life.
You can read more about the definition and role of public spaces in cities in publications by Svitlana Shlipchenko and Ihor Tyshchenko in the paper "(Dis)satisfaction with Public Spaces."
2. The decision-making process in cities is not flexible and contextualized at the moment. There is virtually no stage of data analysis and justification in it yet. Most measures are prohibitive or punitive, there are hardly any actions designed to ensure the ability to go out safely for those who cannot stay at home (such as ensuring physical distance between people). Total prohibition of access to many public spaces, such as closure of markets without viable alternatives being proposed is controversial at best.
3. The social importance of public spaces as an environment that provides affordable mobility (public transport, pedestrian and cycling infrastructure), as a tool for supporting and restoring health (green areas and streets convenient for walking), places of economic activity (access to food and essential goods — local markets).
4. Restriction of public space as a place for the exercise of civil rights and freedoms, representation and political expression, as a space for the exercise of one's right to the city. This class of questions is related to the previous three and combines the problem of restriction of the "right to the city" and the need to return this right to its residents after the end of quarantine.
The fact that some quarantine measures are far from being thought-through and the failure to understand the importance of public spaces for people's daily life have exacerbated the problem of their accessibility, broadly speaking.
Quick, safe and accessible mobility has always been a privilege. Now, "immobility" is becoming a privilege too. Getting around the city by car and quick trips or, conversely, walking to work are things not accessible to everyone. Naturally, when access to public transport became restricted, such privileges have been highlighted. It is not a problem to spend most time at home when there is enough living space and it is possible to have personal space. There is no need to go to a "crowded park" when there is a detached house with a garden. We can come up with a lot of similar examples. But they lead to the conclusion that restrictions and prohibitions primarily hit those who suffer from compliance with these rules just as much as from the possibility of getting sick.
When there is restricted access to public transportation, the issue of providing key services within walking distances comes to the forefront. Some alternatives include bicycles and other means of micromobility. As observed, using bicycles is becoming more common in Ukrainian cities. But not everyone can switch to a bicycle or use a scooter. The question thus arises how far each of us can go on foot, considering that we also need to go back? That is immediately followed by the question of whether or not there is safe access to services, food and jobs in every area of the city within walking distance? As an example, we can look at the data about the accessibility of supermarkets in Kyiv or assess the accessibility of other socially important services. Spatial inequality has become much more acute in Ukrainian cities, highlighting the consequences of uneven development.
The quality of pedestrian and cycling infrastructure is another issue becoming more important, as most Ukrainian cities invest into them on the "residual" basis. The system of restrictions and prohibitions proposed by the authorities favours people who are already privileged and does not offer solutions for the more vulnerable.
What can be done? Of course, the strategic priority of sustainable mobility should have been used for urban development from the very start. But there are some tactical solutions available today. For instance, pedestrian zones can be extended by closing certain roads for cars; temporary bicycle lanes can be made, obstacles can be put in place for cars to slow down. These measures reflect the priorities and values of urban development and "treat the symptoms," while we need strategies to resolve the root causes of the problems arising today.
The quarantine restrictions have raised the issue of access to public spaces not only as "pedestrian arteries," but also as recreational areas. The prohibitions of walks in green areas have once again "punished" the most vulnerable categories of citizens. When numerous people share tight living quarters (for instance, when a big family lives in a small flat), the ability to go outside for a walk is critical for physical and mental health. Women constitute the most vulnerable category here, often being the primary caretakers in the family. The ability to get fresh air is essential for people with various chronic diseases, such as asthma. Granted, there are many cities in Ukraine with a high level of air pollution, so apart from measures to increase the green areas, our cities need to address the climate situation and adaptation to climate change.
Availability of green areas in Kyiv (from the lun.ua website)
Places of commerce are also considered public spaces. The quarantine measures include restriction of food markets (one of the reasons being the absence of localized strategies and policies). However, for many people (especially in smaller towns) they are one of the very few places where they can buy high-quality affordable food (as city mayors say themselves). When such public spaces stop functioning, this poses a challenge to food security in those towns. On the other hand, villagers who sell food have lost their source of income. The first protests have already taken place, and there is probably more to come. City managers and urban planners have developed tactical proposals to continue safe functioning of markets: create distancing demarcation and space out the stalls or even place the stalls along an entire block within walking distance.
The last problem out of the four described above — the importance of public spaces for manifestation of rights and freedoms, and on a broader level, restriction of these rights and freedoms for the sake of security, plus protection of privacy — is making a comeback in public debate, indicating the level of democracy (or lack thereof). The threat of authoritarianism already looks real for certain countries (such as Hungary). But as long as we keep talking about this issue publicly, we remain in the democratic field.
Under the circumstances of the quarantine, there are few options for visible political protests. The danger of being arrested for participating in a protest is real, since it would be a violation of the quarantine rules. What is more, who can even get to the protest site, given the above considerations about the accessibility of spaces and the surveillance of citizens' movement in this or that form?
Online protests do not seem to be an equal replacement for an offline meeting. For instance, the protest against reducing the funding of culture would be more effective offline than online, since this protest was only visible to a narrow circle of involved people and almost impossible for a "random passer-by" to notice. On the other hand, there are examples where civil society united online to protect their right to access to public spaces, including access to mobility.
Surveillance, prohibitions, punishment, and rigidity of the national and local authorities' policy significantly restricts people's rights to the urban space. This restriction affects the most vulnerable and underprivileged groups of people more than others. They took the hardest hit during the quarantine. This results not only from the glaring problems in city planning (car-centricity of cities, excessive load on the social infrastructure and public spaces, neglect of the suburbs and lack of contextual solutions for various types of administrative units) or from the existing inequalities in the Ukrainian society. It also attests to the misunderstanding of cities, the lack of data for informed decision-making, inefficient management and a low-quality decision-making system, which needs to be based on evidence, research and expert opinions.
This is exacerbated by issues with communications, as it is impossible to fight the pandemic without building effective communications between the authorities and the citizens, without the authorities investing into their own credibility. The case of Yuzivka cholera riot (August 2–3, 1892; the riot was directly caused by unexplained sanitary restrictions: an import ban on fresh fruit and vegetables, which raised the prices, demolition of outbuildings / sheds, and prejudice against doctors), even though it happened over a hundred years ago, is a good example of what may happen if the authorities fail to communicate with the society and people do not trust the authorities. Now, it still often means the worst possible scenario.
For instance, new practices established by the quarantine once again highlighted the restriction of the "right to the city" as defined by Henri Lefebvre, as "the highest form of rights: liberty, individualization in socialization, environs (habitat) and ways of living (habiter). The right to the oeuvre (participation) and appropriation (not to be confused with property but use value)." It is important that cities create the conditions to restore this right.
These problems existed in Ukrainian cities even before the pandemic, which only served to highlight and aggravate them. Yet, not all is lost. We have the opportunity to build on the historic experience and perceive the current situation as an opportunity to make change and create resilient cities for people.
Here are possible ways to achieve this:
- implement the principles of integrated approach, sustainable development and the aspiration to create equal conditions for all social, cultural, and ethnic groups into urban planning practices;
- develop and implement solutions to adapt to climate change, which should include comprehensive development of green areas and water reservoirs in the city and access to them;
- to overcome inequalities, all measures to address existing problems should be based on relevant data and expert knowledge, while decisions should be made with broad consulting with all stakeholders. Cities need to have both strategic solutions and the opportunity to make rapid tactical decisions in the event of a crisis;
- ensure the principles of sustainable urban mobility: develop public transportation and means of getting around the city, as well as cycling and pedestrian infrastructure;
- develop policy for provision of affordable housing;
- ensure further decentralization of Ukraine and greater independence of local authorities;
- arrange for civic education to strengthen the public discourse and exercise of the "right to the city." Start a broad discussion about the essence and significance of public spaces to arrive at the consensus concerning its interpretation;
- in the future, talk not so much about changes in urban development as about development of strategic regional planning (as discussed, at the time, by Leonardo da Vinci and Georges-Eugène Haussmann).
Written by:
Tetiana Vodotyka — project coordinator of the Centre for Urban Studies (CUS);
Mariia Hryshchenko — social scientist and researcher;
Svitlana Shlipchenko, PhD — director of the CUS.
Translation by Natalia Slipenko.
