The future of city planning
Posted in:
Geographics
Published: 2020-09-17
What: Empty offices in the big cities are causing a “big problem” for the economy (Sadiq Khan, 2020) and there is an on-going debate about the future of big cities when working patterns change and new working spaces as well as working from home changes the game and impacts the periphery. Experts share their view of the new normal and how cities will transform in almost all countries. Small businesses such as cafés, restaurants, shoe repair shops, bars, dry cleaners, etc are experiencing a huge loss in income due to people currently staying at home.
So what: The global accelerating trend of an increased number of remote workers has been going on for years. But during the pandemic working from home has become more often synonymous with remote work, which are two concepts that need to be kept separate in order to understand the world and transformation of working patterns. With an increased number of people working remotely, city-planners will need to adjust their way of planning cities. Big offices, as we know them, might no longer be the big contributor to the well-fare of entrepreneurs situated in the city center. At the same time, we can see an increase in multi-functional spaces where different functions co-exist in the same space, such as libraries, coffee shops, etc (Mina di Marino). To meet this need for new forms of appropriation of public and semi-public spaces for working purposes this needs to be analyzed in order to form new ways of thinking around urban policies and practices for the survival of our cities with more focus on research and policy development that includes prototyping, testing, and an iterative approach.
Deep dive:
Manhattan faces a Reckoning:
Stockholm will survive:
Emerging Workplaces in Post-Functionalist Cities (Mina di Marino): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10630732.2017.1297520