Part 2 Rethinking urban regeneration post-covid
The pandemic and the rules of lockdown has evolved the connection people have with the open spaces around them (Gehl, 2020). The outdoor activities that took place on daily basis due to intercity travel regarding work, study, recreation and retailing have shifted indoors with various online options to achieve them. Life in outdoor public spaces takes place due to three types of activities-necessary activities, optional activities and the occurrence of both resulting in social activities (Gehl, 2011). The rules of lockdown aimed at essential travelling allowed for necessary activities to take place while reducing the chances of optional activities and in turn hampering the social activities due to less frequent outdoor trips and social meeting rules.
In an unprecedented time like a pandemic, public realms supporting safe outdoor interactions and possibility for physical exercise replete the void created by imbalance in the occurrence of outdoor activities. The nature of public spaces in the city has a great influence on the outdoor life. Public spaces that are under managed or over managed (Carmona, 2010) hamper the quality of public spaces and fail to act as democratic public realms. Under managed spaces that are neglected results in uncared, littered and poorly repaired spaces that are overlooked by people for outdoor activities due to their unsafe ambience. Even though such spaces may be well located within a residential or community based neighbourhoods, they are under used and may be a topic of conflict for who should maintain the space and look after its repair (Carmona, 2010).
Over managed public spaces are created due to privatisation. Private organisations that work on international levels fund the designing and maintenance of public spaces without the consideration of the local public (Carmona, 2010). Land and property market are important income producing elements. Private developers and investors along with entrepreneurially inclined government encourage regeneration projects that promote retail, lifestyle and commercial aspects (Taşan-Kok, 2020). Once the element of retail is associated with the functioning of a public space, it is heavily dependent on the working of anchor stores. This shifts the activity focus of the public space and creates a dependence relationship with the retail element rather than the inclusivity of the space (Gibbs, 2011). Commercialisation and consumption spaces also cause segregation between user groups (Carmona, 2010). People who can afford to pay for the services and commercial presence of the public space are segregated from the ones who cannot pay for the experience of using such places.
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