Priorities like the protection of people in the workplace, fixed-quota numbers and smart working, or the relationship between flows of people and individual vehicle traffic, point the way to a refunctionalized city that avoids the concentration in a few urban areas of activities like education, commerce, healthcare and territorial welfare, instead encouraging their distribution in the various neighborhoods. It is the model of the so-called ‘15-minute city’ promoted by Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris, inspiring other cities that are focusing on sustainable, short-range mobility – Milan, Barcelona and London, for example.

“If services and professions of primary importance are redistributed in a more efficient way,” says Philipp Rode, associate professor and executive director of the program Emergency Government for Cities at the London School of Economics (LSE), “it is possible to recalibrate the dualism between center and outskirts. This also improves the general conditions of the neighborhoods most at risk: during the lockdown in London assistance services were provided for the homeless or the poorest people, pointing the way to a safer, more inclusive city. But what is needed is the combined action of public policies on urban transports and workplaces, just to mention two areas.

Greater decentralization of labor and incentives for smart working – in these months we have implemented a surprising exercise of reorganization of remote work, on which we can now capitalize – can reduce commuting and suggest more flexible hours, avoiding rush hours and indicating new ‘smart’ environments as shared spaces, accessed on the basis of time sharing. This would have an effect on the public transport system, whose use has to be encouraged, but only if there are reliable safety measures – from devices of individual protection to apps to prevent crowding, temperature detectors, automatic sanitizing systems. The redistribution of short-range services and a system of pedestrian walkways, bicycle paths and electric collective transport with assisted driving can offer an alternative to the massive, unsustainable return of the automobile.”

Technology seems to play a key role in safety and the use of shared spaces. “Its contribution,” Rode continues, “in the management of public spaces could help to resolve things. For example, in a situation of social distancing, people could reserve time slots, rethinking the space on the basis of time of use. New hypotheses are needed, which can correspond to design solutions that combine physical and virtual presences, in public venues, for example. Towards a new idea of coexistence in a situation of safety.”

The architecture firm Progetto CMR has been part of the design task force put together by DesignTech Hub, whose results are summed up in the recent white paper DesignTech for Future. Regarding public space, Progetto CMR, heading the work table on this topic, adds that design has to start over from analysis of functions and complementary services, focusing on an offering of differentiated experiences, which also includes the definition of ‘decompression zones’ between physical spaces and functions, where people can spend recreational time without the risk of crowding in a single location.

“Credo che nel breve termine”, interviene Carlo Ratti, fondatore di Carlo Ratti Associati e direttore del MIT Senseable City Lab a Boston, “dovremo ancora accettare il compromesso di un ridotto uso dello spazio pubblico, almeno fino alla scoperta di un vaccino. Tuttavia, come scrisse Dante, ‘l’uomo naturalmente è compagnevole animale’. È una caratteristica che ci porta a vivere insieme nella città, un istinto che è sopravvissuto a calamità e pandemie ben più devastanti del Covid-19. A metà del Trecento, la peste falcidiò il 60% della popolazione di Venezia. La Serenissima non rispose cambiando il proprio ‘hardware’ bensì il ‘software’: aprì ai migranti offrendo cittadinanza veneziana a tutti coloro che si fossero trasferiti in Laguna. I cambiamenti delle nostre città dopo questa emergenza sanitaria riguarderanno la sfera del digitale, più che quella fisica”.