Post-pandemic cities: urban ghettos or urban commons?

Abstract

This article examines potential impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on key aspects of urban development: the functioning of individuals in physical sense (human bodies) in a city, urban morphology and landuse, urban mobility, as well as economic activities and service provision. The goal is to answer the question on how and to what extent the pandemic might reshape the cities and what the potential post-pandemic urban scenarios are. The analysed urban phenomena are projected against major dichotomy of urban ghettos vs. urban commons. The former is defined as further social segregation and spatial isolation, whereas the latter is based on multiple ideas inspired by the original definition of a city by Lewis Mumford. The article is concluded with two basic, symbolic, and opposite scenarios highlighting the fact that the pandemic might have opened a window of opportunity for cities to rethink their development pathways and reinvent their cultural, as well as socio-economic role.