The Covid-19 crisis poses big questions for cities. Throughout history people, businesses, knowledge producing organisations such as universities, cultural bodies and professional institutions, and investors have been attracted to cities because of the concentrations, diversity and flows of ideas and opportunities they provide, enabled by density, access to a large workforce via the public transport network, and close networks of face-to-face collaboration. These trends have led to the emergence of innovation districts in city centres and well-connected nodes in the UK as well as globally. These very factors that have underpinned the success of cities are now challenged by a new, dangerous, communicable disease, physical and social distancing, and the experience of mass working from home. Why locate and force people to commute to and cluster in urban centres when there is the risk of disease and we can work from our homes?
But cities will bounce back, and their role in providing the right places and networks to support innovation and growth will be more important now than ever for six reasons.
First, it is in cities where we have the best prospects for the rapid innovation needed to tackle societal and health challenges. We need rapid innovation to tackle the crisis and its implications. Cities and innovation districts can connect innovators, entrepreneurs, the health and social care system and other providers of public services to work together to tackle societal and health challenges. The focus could be on products and services which would realistically and significantly meet a societal need that has emerged or increased due to the Covid-19 pandemic, or the need of an industry that has been severely impacted and disrupted. This could be in the field of healthcare, public health, community support, online and home delivery. This could be part of a wider mission-orientated approach to supporting innovation-driven economic growth. A £20 million competition has been launched by Innovate UK to support firms responding to new and urgent needs as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Second, now is an opportunity to use our cities and innovation districts as test-beds. The real world will look and operate differently as we move out of lockdown into a test-trace-isolate phase. We will need to rapidly change the way we manage transport systems, buildings and urban logistics. For example, cities are reallocating road-space from cars to pedestrians and cyclists, and the Government have announced a trial of drone delivery of medical supplies. There may be new use cases and increased demand for autonomous transport, for example the type of driverless pods that have been trialled at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Research by Arup for Nesta has looked at how cities can develop tools for testing innovation in the real world. Once we move into the economic recovery phase, test-beds can have a continued role.
Third, building ecosystems for innovation-led entrepreneurship can be part of the recovery plan. Our cities will need to shape and help deliver a major economic stimulus package of regeneration, infrastructure, housing and economic growth projects to kickstart economic recovery. Think a modern-day Marshall plan to put in place the building blocks for a more productive future economy. This needs to encompass soft infrastructure as well as physical projects. Cities should get behind innovative start-ups and scale-ups. These high growth businesses, which make a huge contribution to the economy through their investment in people, technology and innovation, are likely to find securing finance harder. Cities and Government should back innovation districts as projects that can kickstart and sustain the right type of future growth.
Fourth, collaboration in cities will become more, not less important, and we need to design and curate our physical spaces accordingly. Firms and organisations are already reflecting on what they have learned in recent weeks to consider the future for their offices and estates. Whilst there is scope for them to have less office space, they are also experiencing the inefficiencies of mass working from home, the challenges in collaborating across disciplines and organisations, the difficulties in building the relationships and implicit trust that come from face-to-face discussions, the sheer time and energy required to run a Zoom meeting compared to a physical one, the loneliness and lack of fun and enjoyment. This experience will re-enforce the need for firms to have the right office space in urban areas. They may need less of it, and its primary function may shift towards supporting collaboration and away from providing banks of desks. People will want to interact, to share ideas, and to share each other’s company in urban spaces between the buildings. Offices, campuses and urban spaces may be reconfigured around a primary function of supporting collaboration and interaction, away from providing desk capacity.
Fifth, inclusive growth will become an even more important policy priority. This crisis is going to lead to a huge shake-out in the labour market. Entrepreneurship could offer a new career path for people who have lost their jobs. There will be a need and an opportunity for many people to gain new skills as employment in some sectors decreases, and opportunities are created in others. The organisations involved in innovation districts have a role to play here in supporting people to adapt and rebuild their careers. We need to use this opportunity to consider how we value, pay and offer better security key workers in sectors such as health, social care, retail, deliveries and hospitality. We should consider how we can reshape the labour market in these sectors, many of which have to date been associated with low wage, low skilled, and insecure work.
The Centre for Progressive Policy has predicted that places with weaker economies will be hit hardest. Some of these cities and towns could create their own innovation districts, or projects to support people to start and scale up innovative and creative firms. There is an opportunity to strengthen and the role of healthcare providers as anchor institutions for growth. We can build on the community led and volunteer networks that have been established to support our neighbours, or vulnerable or lonely people. We need to consider the intergenerational dimension. Older people are most vulnerable to this disease and will suffer most from shielding, but younger people are seeing their education, careers and livelihoods being damaged significantly. We need a model that supports and values older people (there is an opportunity here for innovation districts as is being demonstrated by Newcastle’s National Innovation Centre for Ageing) as well as creating a more resilient and sustainable model of growth to benefit future generations.
Finally, history has shown us cities adapt and change in response to health risks and shocks. As Ed Glaeser has written, cities and pandemics have a long history. Throughout history, cities and towns have needed to strike a balancing act between providing the densities that support the collaboration, knowledge and innovation needed to accelerate economic growth, whilst also addressing the public health risks that density creates. In 1854 John Snow meticulously mapped the London cholera outbreak, identifying the source (a water pump). The Victorians built sanitation systems and hospitals and made health breakthroughs. Florence Nightingale advised on the design of the new Leeds General Infirmary that was opened in 1869. Liverpool created the first public baths of any city, and the world’s first school of tropical medicine. In what is today the London Knowledge Quarter hormones, vitamins and the structure of DNA were discovered. We are now going to need to adapt our cities once again.
After 9/11 many commentators predicted fundamental changes in urban areas, for example a shift away from tall buildings, and global travel. Instead we adapted our cities and transport networks with security measures to respond to the new normal.
With the growth of the internet and global communications, many predicted the death of cities and densities. In reality, as the economy has become more specialised, knowledge based and focused on intangibles, face-to-face proximity has become more, not less important. This will continue. Smart people will still want to work alongside other smart people, and collaborate, compare and compete in the spaces between the buildings. Knowledge producing firms and institutions will still want to be close to each other and have access to a skilled and creative workforce across a wide area. All of this will need to be supported by the right supply and curation of commercial space and formal and informal public and social spaces, and the right networks between corporates, start-ups and scale-ups, universities and major cultural institutions, investors, and city governments.
Whilst our towns and cities will be different as a result of this crisis, they will be central to the huge economic recovery effort needed. As Ed Glaeser has argued, “We have built our modern world around proximity, and Covid-19 has made the costs of that closeness painfully obvious. We can either reorient ourselves around distance or recommit ourselves to waging war against density’s greatest enemy: contagious disease.”
The challenges are significant. We have some difficult days ahead. Cities can shape and support the recovery, and build better, fairer, more resilient, sustainable and productive economies, and innovation districts have a huge role to play.
Article written by Tom Bridges, Arup’s Leeds Office Leader and Director Cities Advisory, in partnership with UK IDG
