May 14, 2020

Post Corona City

By Friederike Meyer (meyer@postcoronacity.net)
Thomas Mann House Fellow, Los Angeles

Coauthor: Doris Kleilein, Thomas Mann House Fellow Los Angeles

The author will give this presentation at the Pandemic Urbanism Symposium in a session titled “Urban Form Beyond the Norm,” from 10:15 – 11:15 AM on May 29, 2020.

Density, Mobility and Common Good – Towards the Post Corona City

The pandemic reveals the advantages of robust and resilient cities as well as the consequences of insufficient or nonexistent urban planning. The collective experience in the state of emergency provides a chance to accelerate long-overdue demands and concepts for the climate-neutral city in its consequent implementation.

Everything that makes cities worth living in also helps in a crisis like this: a climate-friendly active mobility, flexible spatial models for living and working, affordable housing, sufficient public space, regional economic cycles, inclusive neighborhoods and a well-organized administration. Resiliency depends on how density is organized and designed.

Facing climate change, the dense, mixed-use city is more than ever an answer to the global dilemma of more and more people having to share resources and spaces that are coming to an end. Based on built and proposed projects from Berlin and other European cities, the lecture will outline in which areas the crisis can be a catalyst for urban development towards the common good and what political action needs to be taken.