How do you recapture the hearts of the masses when the masses are playing hard to get? For cities across the world, luring workforces and visitors back to reignite urban buzz and power their local economies is likely to be one of the most complex challenges they have faced in modern history.
Not only are millions of people now comfortably ensconced in existences that are simply less reliant on the hustle and bustle of city life; many are scarred by the events of the past two years. Potentially more than they even realise. “There is going to be a lot of PTSD post-pandemic,” says Jackie Sadek, chief operating officer of UK Regeneration.
And author and journalist Greg Lindsay puts it even more starkly. “We can’t underestimate the impact of unprocessed trauma. The mass death event we have all been through is going to have repercussions on cities for years to come.”
Lindsay predicts that a global mental health crisis is following hot on the heels of the pandemic. A crisis that can, and arguably should, be addressed by cities through a greater emphasis on public services and public realm. How we design for care and recovery, he says, is something every city should be asking itself because, done right, this could be a valuable step towards a return to the hubbub that characterises the world’s urban centres. From a rethinking of transport networks and the use of technology to ease congestion to anchoring new development around F&B and sociable spaces to bring people together, much can be done.
But there is no one-size-fits-all solution. In the UK specifically, where – like the US – there has been a large-scale “flight to the country”, different cities are facing different challenges. For the behemoths like London and Manchester, which have generally been hit the hardest by the mass exodus, mobility and digital innovation could play a huge role in bringing people back and tracking footfall to create more reactive, user-friendly urban centres. For the smaller, more agile core cities, Sadek is convinced that, with the right strategy and branding, the opportunity to reinvent is huge.
The mass death event we have all been through is going to have repercussions on cities for years to come
Greg Lindsay, author and journalist
Hard times
Footfall and spend in UK cities remains down almost universally post-pandemic. London has been the worst hit. According to Centre for Cities’ high street recovery tracker, in February this year the capital was still only half as busy as it was before Covid. Other cities listed in the bottom 10 for footfall recovery include Manchester, Birmingham, Belfast, Glasgow and Cardiff. Conversely, the UK’s smaller towns and cities, including Plymouth, Barnsley and Sunderland, appear to have fared better, with some even boasting higher footfall in January than they did pre-pandemic.
However, Centre for Cities chief executive Andrew Carter warns that these figures can paint a misleading picture, and that investment into cities across the country remains crucial if recovery is to be properly harnessed. “We must remember that some of these smaller cities were not performing well before the pandemic,” he says. “So, while there has been a rebound on the face of it, often that is a rebound back to a pretty weak position. There are still problems to address across the board, and the answer is to get more money into pockets.”
The big question, of course, is how? How can cities bring in the spend and activity they so desperately need to keep their local economies going? How can they collectively reignite the population’s love for urban life? A good first port of call would be a return to Lindsay’s point on the mental health repercussions of the past two years. A renewed focus on public realm and development anchored around sociable spaces are his go-to next steps.
“The cities that seemed to be best prepared for the pandemic were those that, as the saying goes, turned to the ideas that were already lying around on the ground at the time,” he says. “In Paris, for example, planners closed the streets to traffic to allow for social distancing, to create a more attractive urban core with more cycling and walking. And this sort of approach is starting to show up in upcoming real estate projects.
“It used to be that you had mixed-use projects with offices at the core, because workplace was the big focus at the time. Then you would surround it with residential and retail. Now you are seeing projects where the cores are effectively F&B concepts, because we recognise that, post-pandemic, people just want to be around other people. You can work from anywhere, you can shop from anywhere, but building sociable spaces, both public and private, will be a big new growth industry.”
This focus on bringing people back together, a shift away from our cities being hubs for work and instead creating places with their own personalities where people can be sociable and feel connected, is a strategy that Sadek hopes the UK’s smaller urban centres will embrace. “Your Nottinghams, Sheffields and Leicesters,” she says. “They all have a huge amount going for them if they work on a unique narrative for their own place. Nottingham was always the city of rebels, and it could reinstate that brand. It could potentially become a proper, walkable, 15-minute community full of niche boutiques, shops selling vinyl and – what people really want – bars and restaurants.”
While there has been a rebound on the face of it, often that is a rebound back to a pretty weak position
Andrew Carter, Centre for Cities
The walkable city
The mention of the 15-minute city here is an interesting one. Back in May 2020, it was notable that EDGE Technologies managed to get most of its workforce back into their offices in Amsterdam just two months after the start of the pandemic. This was, in part, down to the technology they already had on-site given the nature of their business developing the world’s smartest buildings. But it was also fuelled by the city set-up itself. As a relatively walkable urban centre with a huge emphasis on cycling, Amsterdam was simply better set up than many other cities to facilitate an earlier return to work and life – government restrictions notwithstanding.
For some of the UK’s smaller cities, as Sadek says, the opportunity to embrace the power of the 15-minute community could become a reality. The ability to offer what people really want from urban life post-pandemic, whether that’s a renewed focus on sociable spaces or a fresh strategy for public realm, without the need to spend much time on large-scale public transport is a gift. A gift that not all cities can realistically offer.
“This idea of the 15-minute city is a beautiful, beautiful dream,” says Lindsay. “But the concept of trying to adopt an archipelago of neighbourhoods that we walk and cycle between is something that the majority of major Western cities can’t actually achieve for a number of reasons. One of those reasons is a lack of suitable housing and spatial inequality. It is impossible to live in a 15-minute city when the workers who serve you the coffee you walked 10 minutes to get have had to commute in from the urban periphery. We certainly haven’t built the housing required for them to live in the centre of Paris, New York or London.”
Your Nottinghams, Sheffields and Leicesters – they all have a huge amount going for them if they work on a unique narrative for their own place
Jackie Sadek, UK Regeneration
Changing mobility patterns
For our larger cities, then, mobility and infrastructure will be core to their recovery plans. “Infrastructure and accessibility are key,” says Jonathan Gardiner, head of UK office agency at Savills. “Cities with better trains, trams and cycling have more of a draw than others, although Tube numbers have been slower to recover.”
“The demonisation of public transit has been such an unfortunate own goal for cities,” adds Lindsay. “Obviously, the public transport systems that have been set up to deliver people to urban centres for work at peak times are being used less now that more people are working from home. But for large cities to function, you still need to have that truly regional scale of mass transit. It will just need to be rethought as patterns of mobility change.
“Switching from commuter rail patterns to all-day services that connect to multiple urban centres could be a great way to get people moving around and into cities again. I know there is a plan in New York, for example, to resurrect disused rail lines to connect Queens, Brooklyn and ultimately the Bronx, bypassing Manhattan because there is a recognition that people live and work within the city but outside the city core.”
While Lindsay’s upset over the demonisation of public transport might be valid, the horse has arguably bolted. There are people who, come what may, will remain nervous. And while Savills’ Gardiner says that access to decent infrastructure is proving a draw in terms of bringing people back into cities, there are still swathes of potential city-goers and visitors who would feel more comfortable travelling at less busy times.
And this is not just as a result of the pandemic creating a heightened fear of health risks and chances of infection in crowded spaces. After two years of time at home, re-evaluating life choices and wellbeing, there are many people who simply don’t want to fall back into the rat race patterns of the past and would rather have more flexibility around when, where and how they travel.
Infrastructure and accessibility are key – cities with better trains, trams and cycling have more of a draw than others
Jonathan Gardiner, Savills
Empowering through technology
Management of this will obviously fall to employers and businesses in the main, but cities can play a role in making the process easier. When it comes to analysing travel patterns, technology and digital innovation are key. Linda Chandler, Microsoft’s industry lead on smart places, says that crowd sensing, occupancy data and real-time footfall data “empower” citizens as they travel into and around cities.
“Technologies were developed during the pandemic which specially looked at how busy city centres were, to give confidence back to people who wanted to travel in,” she says. “There is tech which focuses on density and how full places are before you travel to them, and then there is real-time information on how busy certain buses are. These are the technologies that became more popular during times when people were nervous, but they could have an enduring role within cities and communities.”
She adds that, rather than putting people off travelling into and around cities altogether, these technologies give people the information they need to make a choice about how they travel. “Lots of bus companies now publish maps reporting on when busy times tend to be, and there are technologies available that will let you know, in real time, how busy a mode of transport is. So, for example, you might see that the next bus to arrive is full but there is one coming two minutes after that which is less busy.
“With that information you might decide to wait for that next bus for a number of reasons. It could be because you are nervous of crowded spaces in the wake of the pandemic, or could be because you aren’t in a rush and you would rather wait and enjoy a more leisurely journey. These technologies crucially do not make any assumptions about why people make the decisions they make; they just give them the information to be empowered. After all, congestion is made up of a series of micro-decisions. This information just gives citizens some visibility.”
These technologies crucially do not make any assumptions about why people make the decisions they make; they just give them the information to be empowered
Linda Chandler, Microsoft
Front of mind
As for cities, and UK cities specifically, Chandler says there has been an acceleration post-pandemic in their embracing of a smarter, more digital approach to mobility and wider city infrastructure – one that she believes will help bring people back to urban hubs if used correctly. “Smart places and spaces are more at the heart of people’s minds now,” she says. “This is largely because, during the pandemic, we have used technology a lot more; high streets have been catapulted into a world of local online.
“There has been a marked shift, and I only hope we can build on it. We have the infrastructure and data to understand places. But are we curating that data for the benefit of residents and visitors with all of the right privacy data in place? That is something we need to work on.”
Recapturing the hearts of the masses is far from an impossible task for UK cities as they set about recalibrating post-pandemic. But it won’t be an easy one. As workforces ebb and flow, cities as commercial hubs above all else are unlikely to remain as hard and fast as they once were. People want more, and cities will need to offer that. Whether it is a refreshed focus on care through public realm, more development anchored by sociable spaces or a rapid acceptance of technology, there is work to be done.
But the good news is that the opportunities are there for those with the will to chase them. “It’s all to play for,” says UK Regeneration’s Sadek. “I mean that. It’s all to play for.”
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