Planning for the temporary: temporary urbanism and public space in a time of COVID-19

Abstract

It is a cliche to say we live in strange times: COVID-19 has focused our attention on schedules of lockdowns and long-term economic effects, and has even slowed down our experience of time due to increased cognitive loads. But as planners or urban designers it is our urban places that have also become strange: COVID-19 is altering our use of, and behaviour in, public space – from physical and social distancing to staying at home or even leaving the city altogether. We are concerned with how long we will tolerate state encroachments in public space, especially new techniques of surveillance and control, but we also see local governments opening up streets to give more public spaces back to pedestrians. In this Viewpoint we explore these paradoxes of public space in a time of COVID-19, from its temporary disappearance to the potential for temporary changes to underpin lasting strategies for liveable, economically viable and resilient public space. Although some link temporary urbanism to neo-liberal urban development and austerity policies (Stevens et al., 2019), we ponder how the COVID-19 moment critiques the status quo by providing new openings for shifting temporary urbanism into the mainstream planning toolkit. Does COVID-19 present an opportunity to make temporariness more deliberate and programmatic,thereby catalysing long-term change?