i + D - May/June 2020 - 46

Living by
Design
Nature
Connection

The New Urban Ballet
In cities across the country, a new dance emerged in March. Walking down
the sidewalk became a very different experience as people maneuvered
to maintain a 6-foot protective bubble around themselves, hugging the
curb when another person passed by and stepping into yards and parking
lanes when foot traffic surged beyond the point where social distancing
was possible. Pharmacies and grocery stores were among the first pioneers
of this pandemic choreography, painting stripes on the pavement at 6-foot
intervals so people could safely line up outside to wait for their turn to enter,
and erecting all manner of jerry-rigged barriers to coerce customers to move
about in a safe manner.
The urbanist Jane Jacobs famously described the intricate, though
unconscious, movement of people throughout the day on a city street as
a "sidewalk ballet." Today's version is considerably more self-conscious
in its choreography-and, for many, filled with anxiety.
Landscape architects like Jeff Cutler, an urban design specialist who founded
the Vancouver firm space2place, have been observing this new dance as
they contemplate how temporary social distancing interventions might
eventually crystallize into permanent features of the urban landscape. Driving
around the city on a weekday early in Vancouver's lockdown, Cutler observed
what has become a strikingly familiar scene: "The downtown streets were
quite empty, but the parks were quite full." He wondered whether "the idea
that parks should be thought of as part of the public health system will be a
lasting legacy of the pandemic." He says, "There's a lot of evidence for the
health benefits of parks and urban green spaces, but it has always seemed
a bit abstract to communicate that to the general public. I think that
connection has become much more real for people."
When people leave home to go to school or work, they are moving about-
"Getting my steps in!" they say-as well as socializing to varying degrees.
If they're not leaving home for either of those reasons, they still need to
get out and interact with the world, which means they're likely to do it in
more of a recreational fashion. In Vancouver, so many people swarmed into
Stanley Park (the city's biggest) that city officials closed the road encircling
it, as a sort of relief valve, says Cutler. "If everyone goes to the park at the
same time," he explains, "you exceed the carrying capacity-you need more
space for social distancing, and that space has to come from somewhere."

Located in City Centre,
in Surrey, British Columbia,
West Village Park is an
urban oasis designed by
space2place.
(Image: Courtesy of space2place)

The same could be said for sidewalks. In that case, the extra space also has
to come from the street. "Typically around 30 percent of the land in a city
is dedicated to road rights-of-way," says Cutler. "The street network is the
largest category of publicly owned space in any city, so that's the obvious
spot to steal some space."

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i + D - May/June 2020

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