Has corona changed urban life for good?

Former Whistling Thorn School in Dagoretti North, Nairobi that was turned into residential rooms following the closure of educational institutions due to Covid-19. [Wilberforce Okwiri, Standard]

Downtowns are deserted and happy hour is history as a second coronavirus wave hits cities from London to Kuala Lumpur, leaving futurologists predicting which changes to urban living are here to stay in a post-viral world.

Looking back in history, epidemics breed overhaul and innovation, with city sewage systems, public transit and housing regulations all owing their existence to past pests and plagues.

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, all corners of city life - from home to office, park to pub - are undergoing a reboot, with some cities increasing parkland, others cycle lanes, flats redesigned to work at home, and one cafe using inflatable hats to distance.

But whether the changes address the widening economic and social divide urban dwellers were witnessing before the pandemic is the big question for the seven in 10 people projected to live in cities by 2050.

“Covid-19 has laid bare existing fault lines in cities that are impossible to ignore,” Ani Dasgupta, global director of the US-based WRI Ross Centre For Sustainable Cities, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“We have known that growing inequality is a real problem for the economic and social health of cities. But the effects of the pandemic are exacerbating divides.”

Unemployment rates have rocketed due to lockdowns and inequalities - between low and high earners, young and old workers, and for ethnic minorities - could worsen without reforms to how our cities function, researchers warn.

With the virus showing no let-up, politicians predict a long haul to recovery, with more than 44 million people infected so far and the death toll topping 1.1 million, according to a global tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Governments have been racing to house an estimated 1.8 billion people who are homeless or live in inadequate housing and are at risk of contagion.

“The pandemic has highlighted, more than ever before, how integrally linked housing is to health and life,” said Shivani Chaudhry, executive director of advocacy group Housing and Land Rights Network in Delhi.

Eviction bans, rent freezes and mortgage holidays sought to protect renters and homeowners in some cities, but countries like Kenya, India and Brazil kept evicting, said Chaudhry.

Officials scoured cities for vacant spaces or disused buildings to turn into makeshift shelters and homes.

Mumbai repurposed iconic sites, turning a ritzy racecourse into a sick ward, while rental company Airbnb connected medics in France and Italy with free flats.

The outbreak has spurred a boom in survival retreats or “bugout” properties – remote, concrete bunkers stocked with months’ worth of food supplies.

Closer to home, architects are rethinking urban infrastructure to promote a more local life.

For many, home is the new workplace.

Almost four in five chief executives expect the pandemic to entrench remote working, according to accountants PwC.

This has spurred architects to reconfigure bijou flats for a new dual life with sliding walls and secreting desks.

“If people now are going to be able to work from home on a far more regular basis they need to have the ability to have a real work-life space and structure at home,” said Greg Verabian of architecture firm HKS in Los Angeles.