The urban street has been pivotal to the Covid-19 lockdown experience. On the one hand, the “recovered” beauty of the empty city is being c...
The urban street has been pivotal to the Covid-19 lockdown experience. On the one hand, the “recovered” beauty of the empty city is being captured by drone films, making many residents wish that the breathing space, clean light and blue skies they show could be sustained after the lockdown. On the other, the locked-down street has left lakhs of informal street workers without livelihoods and cut myriad supply chains.
Clearly, the lockdown can only be a temporary measure. But what do we do with the street once the city starts opening up? Does the pandemic require us to reimagine the street?
“Street” and “road” are synonyms – except that they aren’t. The street is a living social space, while the road is a mere instrument for getting us from point A to point B. The street is not just a physical space – it is what the great urbanist Jane Jacobs called a “ballet” synchronising many different practices of living, working and moving in the city. This ballet takes place in what is called the Right of Way. This is the publicly owned channel of movement that runs between lines of privately owned land parcels. Its width is divided into the carriageway for vehicles and footpaths...
