People on the Streets

Marien Platz, Munich

It's safe to say that 2020 has been a challenging year for almost everybody. Whether you lost your job and income due to the COVID pandemic, or were lucky enough to get government support and intermittent work like me, we’ve all had to deal with significant changes in our lives. Here in Sydney, something that really stood out to me throughout the lockdown and reopening process was how much the city changed in such a short amount of time. 

With office buildings closed and many people working from home, traffic in and around the CBD totally disappeared. In the height of lockdown, the streets in my neighbourhood were virtually empty of cars and people alike. But as restrictions began to ease allowing cafes, bars and restaurants to reopen, the streets came alive again in new and exciting ways. Businesses began to move their service out onto the street, setting up tables, chairs and stalls on the sidewalk, and those that couldn’t still attracted people with takeaway offerings. A number of events also moved outdoors to parks and public squares, to comply with safety measures.

For me, it was quite a relief from the stress and uncertainty of the pandemic to see people (for the most part, safely) using the urban environment to socialise, do business and enjoy the free time they now found themselves with. The same streets that were mostly just thoroughfares between home and work, filled with humming traffic, now had more potential and public engagement than I had ever seen here.

Outdoor dining, set up on a closed road in The Rocks, Sydney - Image from the Sydney Times

Seeing this huge, positive change in how the city could be used made me wonder why Sydney wasn’t doing this all along. It certainly is common elsewhere in the world, particularly in the old districts of European cities, where shops, bars and galleries use their street frontages as much as their four walls. In these cities, rates of car ownership are significantly lower. People are also healthier, walk more, breathe cleaner air and enjoy a generally higher quality of life.

So why did it take a health emergency and economic crisis for the city to be used this way? Why haven’t we been doing this all along?

To answer these question, I’ve been reading and listening a lot lately to experts on topics like urban design, architecture, infrastructure and urban public policy. And the more I learn about the history and development of the urban space, the more I see that it has primarily become a site for capital and profits, rather than for people.

In this blog series, People on the Streets, I’m going to be digging deeper into this issue. Talking with policy makers, academics and various experts in these fields, I’ll explore the ways in which capital has come to dominate urban spaces, and how in a post-COVID world, they might be reclaimed for the people.

Be sure to subscribe and stay tuned for news, stories and interviews in this series!