Rooftop urban gardens or vegetable gardens, wider sidewalks, digital plazas. Still skyscrapers, even if smart working has partially emptied them, while shopping malls and large supermarkets will go out of fashion. The city of the post-Covid future will be more or less like this, which in some parts of the world is already the city of the present, the one conceived well before the pandemic, for example with the model of the "quarter-hour city", in which you can find green areas and services near your neighborhood, moving on foot and avoiding the stress (and pollution) of long journeys by car, or on overcrowded public transport. Why and how the pandemic is accelerating this transformation we asked Stefano Capolongo, full professor of Department of Architecture, Construction Engineering and Built Environment of the Politecnico di Milano: “The challenge is to live in the city but with the quality of life one would expect living outside the city. No, we won't all end up in the countryside or in the villages, as has been said. Indeed, the UN has estimated that in 2050 70% of the world's population will live in urban centres, compared to 56% now”.
Professor, however, that estimate was made before Covid. Is it still current?
"In my opinion, yes. We have seen that as soon as the various lockdowns came out, people poured into the cities, as if they were waiting for nothing else. Man has always had the need to share his knowledge with other people: without cities there is a lack of social cohesion, which is the founding mechanism of society. We also know that life expectancy in urban areas is higher, for three reasons: there is more capacity to generate an economy, the population is better educated and there is greater access to services, starting with health care. Not surprisingly, allow me to add, in Greece they have rightly started vaccinating the inhabitants of the most remote islands, before the cities on the mainland ".
However, cities will necessarily have to change their face, to adapt to new demands, especially environmental ones but, after Covid, also linked to health. Will distancing, for example, become a design theme?
“Yes, in fact there will be wider sidewalks, wider spaces and above all the theme of urban greenery will become even more central. During the pandemic, parks have taken on a fundamental value, for example they have been used to exercise safely outdoors, respecting the distance. In the future they will become real spaces of resilience, spaces where, for example, field hospitals can be organized as was done in New York, spaces with an important social function, which goes beyond the green theme. Greenery improves air quality but also people's psycho-physical well-being. The WHO teaches us that the first health risks derive from socio-economic and environmental factors, and unlike genetic ones, which only science deals with, we can all intervene on these, adapting our urban realities”.
Larger spaces, so will we return to a horizontal and no longer vertical development model? Will we not see new skyscrapers?
“The model will be more horizontal, but verticalization will also continue. In Milan, for example, skyscrapers are still being designed and built”.
To make other offices? Those that already exist have emptied themselves due to smart working…
“Yes, but they will fill up again. Remote working will not last in the post-Covid period, but will be replaced by a mixed working method which also includes presence in the office on certain days of the week. If anything, there won't be the need to build many new workplaces, those that already exist or are in the pipeline will suffice".
If anything, it is the house that will have to adapt, given that it has become a place of life and partly of work.
“And it still will be. With the new working paradigms, homes will have to reconfigure themselves, both in terms of size and space management. First of all, I imagine larger apartments: to take the example of Milan again, today more than half of its population is single and chose to live in one or two-room apartments. With smart working, even a single person or a couple will look for larger homes. Furthermore, the open space will go out of fashion, but distinct and flexible spaces will be preferred in order to have more privacy and isolate oneself to work. And then the pandemic has shown that outdoor spaces are essential: it has been estimated that during the confinement, people who lived in at least 70 square meters, with a usable outdoor space and a pleasant view, developed less anxiety and depression".
Everyone would like a bigger house regardless of teleworking, but it costs more…
“Yes, in the center of the city, but here another great revolution comes into play which will be accelerated by post-pandemic needs: the city of the quarter of an hour. It has been talked about since before the pandemic, especially in cities such as Paris and, in Italy, Milan. The project of a city with services close at hand in every neighborhood will have as its first benefit the redevelopment of the suburbs. With planning that truly brings services and infrastructure everywhere, it is possible that suburban neighborhoods will become more attractive to live in, and that homes can be found at a more affordable price".
What exactly is the city of the quarter of an hour and apart from the redevelopment of the suburbs, why would it be so important?
“With the pandemic we have seen that the center of gravity of daily life has moved from the center to the neighborhood. People worked from home, they couldn't travel and make long journeys, so the importance of proximity services was rediscovered: health facilities, green areas, public transport, supermarket, school, post office, etc. The idea is to be able to access any service in 15 minutes, perhaps on foot or by bicycle, in order to do even those 30 minutes of physical activity that WHO itself suggests, 5 times a week, to prevent chronic diseases. degenerative. And this is where Covid and health come into play: we have seen that the people most exposed to the virus were precisely those with other pathologies, largely due to an overly sedentary lifestyle. The city of 15 minutes is nothing but the city-gym”.
In Milan it is easy to imagine the feasibility of such a process, but can a huge city full of structural problems like Rome do it?
“Milan is definitely ahead but Rome and all the other metropolitan cities can do it too, it's just a matter of planning at the municipal level. It is a question of defining virtual boundaries within which an evaluation of the services already present, and those to be organised, is made. With the pandemic, for example, the importance of having a supermarket, even a small one, near the house has been re-evaluated, so that we can go there comfortably on foot during confinement. In Milan, the Esselunga chain has already intercepted this request and for the future it focuses less and less on the megastores that we have seen proliferate in past years and more and more on the neighborhood mini markets”.
So goodbye shopping malls and large supermarkets?
“There will be no more urban centers, just as there will be far fewer cars and therefore less pollution, because it will be easier to get around on foot. Instead, there will still be newsstands: no longer as newspaper sellers, but as multi-service points in neighborhoods, as is already being seen in Milan. The newsstand, in its new guise, will be a point of reference for the city of the quarter of an hour”.
How much does the smart city have to do with the post-Covid city and how important will the resources of the PNRR be, even on this front?
“The smart city will make the city not only a place to live and work, but also a place of communication, where the architectural element merges with the technological and communicative one. Thanks to 5G and technology, I imagine digital squares, where useful information for citizens is continuously projected. We have seen it with the pandemic, how much it is and how important it would have been to really reach everyone, even the elderly who may not have internet at home or on their smartphone. In this sense, the city of the future must already be the city of the present, for the elderly. As for the PNRR, the funds will be distributed on the basis of innovative projects, and these we are talking about are. But you have to go get that money, you have to present convincing projects. It will be a challenge for the Municipalities but also for private investors”.
And the challenge for your study group at the Milan Polytechnic, however, what is it?
“The challenge for us is to understand how much an infrastructure, whether it's a park or a subway or any other, can generate health. For example, we are now trying to quantify how much well-being would be created by transforming all the roofs of buildings into urban gardens or vegetable gardens, as was already done in cities like New York well before the pandemic. We want to understand if, as has already been demonstrated elsewhere, green spaces improve not only air quality but how it affects, for example, life expectancy. In Turin, another study is correlating the difference in life expectancy between the center and the periphery, before and after the construction of the underground line. Still other studies confirm that patients in a hospital whose windows overlook a green area heal faster than others”.
The issue of health is once again central "thanks" to Covid. How will it be managed in the city of tomorrow?
“The pandemic has confirmed to us that our healthcare system had become too hospital-centric. Instead, we need a widespread network throughout the area, with many multi-service centers that can perhaps be reached, as we said, in 15 minutes from home. These centers will have to relieve hospitals and improve assistance to citizens. Example: today a general practitioner is only available during certain hours of the day, and it often happens that a "white code" causes the emergency rooms to become clogged. These territorial centers will also serve to avoid this, as well as provide assistance and prevention. However, I also imagine them as commercial places, with bars, bookshops, conference rooms, so that they can finance themselves. The PNRR envisages the construction of 100 new hospitals and 1.000 social and health centers in the area: it is a correct choice, but once again convincing projects are needed".
