![]() People who suffer from anxiety and depression women in abusive relationships children experiencing abuse or neglect at the hands of their parents: they have had it the worst, and their experiences of isolation and loneliness during lockdown could have consequences for their personal relationships that will not magically disappear with a vaccine.Īnd that is before you factor in the added strain of the intense financial hardship so many are being forced to endure. I doubt the pandemic will seed a long-term distaste for crowds if anything, I suspect that, if all goes well with the vaccine rollout, summer 2021 will see a crop of riotous street parties and carnivals.īut a return to life as usual will not mask the emotional toll Covid will have had on so many people. But tapping away in a couple of group chats while absent-mindedly watching the latest Netflix offering doesn’t come close to the wonderful feeling of hugging a friend, or spending three hours giving someone you haven’t seen for ages your undivided attention over a meal, or of having a conversation based not just on words but physical cues. In some ways, I’m more in touch with people than ever thanks to the numerous WhatsApp groups that revived themselves into a constant source of company. The pandemic has underlined the extent to which digital interaction is no substitute for the real thing. The emotions I felt so acutely back in March – the sharp fear Covid could steal my parents, the communal endeavour of clapping for our carers every Thursday night – soon faded into a new normal, impossible to sustain even though many of the realities have barely changed.Ĭhatting over WhatsApp while watching Netflix doesn’t come close to the wonderful feeling of hugging. I was amazed at how quickly the idea of socialising with friends indoors became a fuzzy memory, then the norm, then distant again. Lockdown, then not-lockdown, then lockdown again have served as a reminder of just how adaptable we are as human beings. Totally different experiences of the same social earthquake: surely they cannot but profoundly change us for the long term? If you live by yourself, you’ve made do without human touch for months on end if you’re crammed into a small space with your partner, kids and your parents, you may have spent weeks craving time and space not encroached upon by other human beings. And I’m one of the lucky ones: I haven’t had to say goodbye to someone on FaceTime or break the worst news to someone over the phone. Covid means that big chunks of her life have only been seen on a phone screen as she grows into a toddler. The first kiss my baby niece blew me was bittersweet, because like so many pandemic interactions it happened not in person but on camera. Rowan Moore, Observer architecture critic Interaction But there is at least a chance that the travails of 2020 could lead to a saner approach to the places where we live and work. And this vision assumes that Covid passes, and that it is not one of a future series of equally vicious viruses. It could simply be gentrification, if done wrong, at a national scale. This is not to say that no new homes should be built, nor that there won’t be problems with such a shift. On the other there are towns and small cities with good housing stock, an inherited infrastructure of parks and civic buildings and easy access to beautiful countryside, which through their location suffer from underinvestment and depopulation. On the one hand there are overheated residential markets in London, Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh and elsewhere. Such changes could help to address, without the pouring of any concrete or the laying of a brick, the imbalance in the nation’s housing that was at breaking point before Covid. Those ex-urbanites, still valuing social contact and public life, might seek towns and small cities rather than a lonely cottage in a field. If the magic spell of the big city, which kept people in the tiny and expensive flats that now look so inadequate, is broken, then you might consider living in cheaper, more relaxed locations that hadn’t occurred to you before. If you no longer have to go to an office daily, you can live further from the city in which it is placed. These decisions might be based on life changes, such as having children. There will always be millions who want to live in cities and millions who want to live in towns and villages, but there are also those for whom these are borderline decisions, with pros and cons on each side. ![]() These changes do not add up to the abandonment of big cities and offices predicted by more excitable commentaries, not a future of rural bubbles and of tumbleweed blowing through the City of London, but a welcome shift in priorities.
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