Cities have always absolved many of the instances and effects of change. And resilience in its traditional sense is a lesson that may be learned from them. However, what typically happens following a disaster for which resilience is tested is that in response we risk developing a misaligned focus and a dissipated awareness of the situation. For example, after the terrorist attack on New York City and the London Underground, these two cities went into a lockdown as the devastation crippled key infrastructure connected to mass travel.
The focus was that the biggest disaster from disruption, chaos and death most likely to impact cities will come from an outside enemy, aided and abetted from within. Or from those hiding in plain sights and waiting inside the crevices and ports of travel to unleash mayhem. And this was not just in the major cities and ports, but nationwide, and to a large extent, worldwide. These events changed travel forever and unleashed the course of intense surveillance often misused by those who may deem it fit to oppress immigrants and residents too, under the guise of protecting the cities and its citizens. While this is necessary and quite realistic given the inclination of these human perpetrators, we have to also look at the numbers in relation to non-human actors. The biggest disruption and disaster over the last two decades have been through climate change induced natural disasters and similar events. And now the pandemic. Our world and cities have been torn apart by fear and mistrust directed against human induced factors while the spooking reality of nature induced disasters is largely ignored. The bottomline is that climate change is a real and existential threat to humanity. The question is, how safe are our cities from such a calamitous nature-induced event? Furthermore, most of the issues we have faced in terms of disruption and devastation have come from unexpected places. By this, I mean where we hardly put enough planning for resilience. Following the two notable attacks above, some key decisions were made that were symbolic and of far-reaching consequences. While this must have undoubtedly worked to stem off opportunistic and targeted threats and attacks, we must pay attention to other unthought of areas that may create opportunities. Most of the attacks in recent years have been cyber-related. We need more policy initiatives for hardening our cities against cyberattacks. Thus, begs the next question, how safe are our cities from a calamitous cyber-related event? Since the advent and impact of Covid-19, many nations and cities are now grappling with a different spectre of fear and change. And I couldn’t help but notice how the soul of America as a nation has been tested over and over again with the incessant records of deaths and woe. While there have been pandemics, such as the Ebola, Zika and H1N1, the catastrophic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has brought home to roost much of the effects of misdirected focus of decade old policies that had made the development of public health infrastructure a partisan issue in the United States. And this approach can be traced back to earlier administrations. For example, in [1][2] the Obama Administration’s National Security Council prepared a 69-page pandemic playbook to help America combat the catastrophic playout of any future pandemic. This was titled “Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents”. According to the former President, the rationale was that: “There may and likely will come a time in which we have both an airborne disease that is deadly. And in order for us to deal with that effectively, we have to put in place an infrastructure—not just here at home, but globally—that allows us to see it quickly, isolate it quickly, respond to it quickly, so that if and when a new strain of flu like the Spanish flu crops up five years from now or a decade from now, we’ve made the investment and we’re further along to be able to catch it.” -President Obama, 2014 It thus beats hollow that in the advent of a pandemic fitting such a description, a new administration in power begins scrambling about as though there was no plan in place and it had to be built from scratch. In addition, with each iteration of the tomfoolery, actual scientists were prepped like props in a puppet show, and muted sometimes during discourses on response strategies. Why? Such highly important decisions should never be a partisan issue or subject to political machinations. This made many people die. And what we have seen in the last one year has shown that chaos and disruption can materialise in unthought of ways that could be more deadly and devastating than any of the known or thought of ways. The moral of this is that we must be more circumspect in our decision-making processes. This will be helpful in shaping proactive policies rather than reactionary ones that reflect poorly over the years as they truncate, rather than advance the course of posterity. The Quintessential Soul of The Urban The following are examples of major challenges that have prevented modern cities from attaining that goal of quintessential urbanity. Poor Building Controls and Regulations The focus of urban planning policies have been to develop and implement policies for the people living in cities, but often, these policies zoom in onto the project-focus, zoning out the munch-needed people-focus. One key example could be found in the city of Melbourne, where in a bid to solve the housing crisis and proffer a solution to rising urban population, the city developers put up “vertical slums” and skyrise apartment constructions. This development was so bad that they violated building conventions at four times the legal standard required for cities of similar density like New York and Hong Kong. [3] Of course, this created more problems than it solved because the focus became misaligned with the reality of the living conditions needed for humans to thrive, i.e., good ventilation, access to natural light and green spaces. This form of density is particularly dangerous in the event of a pandemic or a tsunami type of disaster. Extirpation of Green Spaces The poor building control issue leads to another major challenge faced by cities, which is the extirpation of their green spaces. Green spaces in urban areas or cities was defined as “the presence of abundant, accessible, open spaces, either for public or private use that are “primarily covered by vegetation” designated as parks for people, play areas for children and families with children, and are crucial to sustainable development, especially as most of the population of people in the world today, live in urban areas” (p. 601). [4] To this end, the lack of green spaces in cities is harming their biodiversity and creating what is known as urban heat islands that make them a leading contributor to climate issues. Many cities are now looking into the development of what is called the ‘green infrastructure’ as a way to curtail the deepening crisis that the lack of green spaces creates. Rapid Urbanisation For example, in places like China, the effect of rapid urbanization has exacerbated the problems of biodiversity, water pollution and carbon emissions [5][6]. These rapid expansion of cities put them under the strain of degenerative conditions in their bid to cater to the rising needs of industrialization. The result is a negative cycle of continual developments and expansion with poor urban living conditions as the outcomes. This is how urban sprawls evolve; out of such meandering of city spaces by sub-cities. For perspective, urban sprawls are private developments spurning out of adjoining areas “resulting in new low-density suburbs with detached or semi-detached housing and strip malls” [7][8]. Urban Sprawls An urban sprawl, usually “a type of low-density development with residential, shopping and office areas that are rigidly segregated, with inadequate transportation and places of recreation activities or businesses as you would have in the urban areas”. [9] It is also characterised by “the encroachment of urban land uses on non-urban land”, p. 358. [10] In addition, it has also been defined in terms of the region where it occurs. An example of this is a city named Hangzhou in China, whose success as a city in China with the 8th largest GDP as of 2013 caused it to have several urban sprawls around it. An urban sprawl in China is known as a ‘street-town’ and “very high economic indicators such as the GDP are tied to the location” of such settlements. [11][12] The problems associated with urban sprawls is another challenge for city planners as they create settlements lacking in many standard inclusive elements required in cities. Take the case of Oklahoma City in the United States, whose obesity crisis in 2007 was linked to the poor design of the city’s sprawls, suburbs and streets that compelled an over-reliance on cars. This poor development of pedestrian paths and so on, became an impediment to residents’ access to sufficient opportunities to walk or exercise because the streets were not designed for pedestrians. The same can be said of many other cities where amenities like bike lanes and pedestrian crossings are not available. Studies have shown the need for urban planning to include the enabling conditions that can ensure the quality of life for such residents. [13][14] Restoring the Soul of the Urban It is worth mentioning here that just as cities can rise, they can die. As the example of Detroit shows after the demise of its manufacturing industry. Thus, cities may lose their relevance and degrade to disrepair if there is a stoppage to the demand of their productive and creative enterprises or by other forces of sudden destructive innovation that turn their fortunes around. This urban phenomenon called ‘de-urbanization’ is the precursor to what is described as the “death of cities” or “urban death”. [15][16][17] Planning for resilience may not only be towards sustaining thriving cities but to help in reinventing ailing ones to revive them. [18][19] And to connect to the theme on which I started, we must acknowledge the possibility that nations or their cities can fall into fear, mistrust or be weighed down by their varying forms of issues, miseries or defects. And the effect of these is that when change is imposed on this status quo, it reproduces a reverberation of waves all across the city systems, in their policy focus and planning. The conflict that ensues continually wrestles with the quintessential soul of the urban. What is this quintessential soul of the urban? Is this what we can achieve when we envision urbanity and humanity together? I want to argue so. We must think more ‘green’, not structure. The biggest focus in the coming years should not be about having more buildings or infrastructure in cities, rather, it should be about making cities less of their structural selves and a more intuitive rendering of their spaces and things in both their inner and outer workings and across all nodes and networks. Furthermore, as I pondered on this concept of city resilience, I found that if we consider it from the perspective of intuitiveness, it will be more pragmatic than perfunctory. Essentially, making the possibilities endless. Thus, cities and governments of nations have arrived at a pivotal point when they must act on how to capture and add value to their infrastructure projects, not only due to the threats to their solution investment choices but based on the importance of these cities as drivers of the wealth of their nations. A stakeholder driven approach could help in keeping the focus aligned. Thus, planners can avoid unleashing the dragon by not over-extending the capabilities of cities. And by such they can be more adept at aiming at the key issues and taming the dragons of alienating fixes. Humans make up cities, and cities must reflect that humanity. This is not to suggest that we perambulate on people level provocations but fail to connect on issue level permutations. There is more we can do at issue levels of thinking. At issue level thinking we can attain focus on the areas of improvement, enhancement and inventiveness according to how these solutions impart the lives of residents and users in general. And this is how the rethinking of responsiveness in city making should be envisioned - a transmutation of previously incoherent takes at solving city problems. This thinking takes a degree of proactive pragmatism, which is a product of intuitive decision making that is devoid of idle tinkering at the wheel of change. Thus, intuitiveness is that factor I believe that our cities must have in the workings of their socio-technical systems, fashioned through an effectuating of frameworks that connect the dots. And while technology is a key tool at achieving this, we must be willing to engage all relevant stakeholders in getting there. Hope for the Future Here are some examples of inclusiveness and responsiveness by cities across the world:
In my next piece I will focus on these examples and others and how cities and businesses are preparing for a post-covid world. Thank you for your kind attention. Yours truly, Shade Adepeju-Joseph DipM MA MS PMP FCIM General Columnist and Editor References [1] Vakil, K. (2020, May 16) Retrieved on February 15, 2021 from https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/04/14/obama-prepared-for-a-potential-pandemic-trump-gutted-his-work/ [2] Knight, V. (2020, May 15) Retrieved on February 15, 2021 from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/obama-team-left-pandemic-playbook-for-trump-administration-officials-confirm [3] Searle, P. (2017). City planning suffers growth pains of Australia’s population boom. Retrieved on April 10, 2020 from https://theconversation.com/city-planning-suffers-growth-pains-of-australias-population-boom-75930 [4] Haq, S. (May 2011). “Urban Green Spaces and an Integrative Approach to Sustainable Environment”. Journal of Environmental Protection. Vol. 2. pp.601-608 [5] Tian, G.J., Liu, J.Y., Xie, Y.C., Yang, Z.F., Zhuang, D.F. & Niu, Z. (2005). Analysis of spatio-temporal dynamic patterns and driving forces of urban land in China in the 1990s using TM images and GIS. Cities 22 (6), 400–410 [6] Shen, W.J., Wu, J.G., Grimm, N.B., Hope, D. (2008). Effects of urbanization-induced environmental changes on ecosystem functioning in the Phoenix metropolitan region, USA. Ecosystems 11, 138–155 [7] Schneider, A., & Woodcock, C. (2008). Compact, dispersed, fragmented, extensive? A comparison of urban growth in twenty-five global cities using remotely sensed data, pattern metrics and census information. Urban Studies, 659-692. [8] Schwarz, N. (2010). Urban form revisited - Selecting indicators for characterizing European cities. Landscape and Urban Planning 96, 29-47 [9] Ewing, R., Pendall, R., Chen, D. (2002). Measuring Sprawl and its Impact. Smart Growth America, Washington. [10] Yue, W., Liu, Y., & Fan, P. (2013). Measuring urban sprawl and its drivers in large Chinese cities: The case of Hangzhou. Land use policy, 31, 358-370. [11] Angel, S., Sheppard, S.C., & Civco, D.L. (2005). The Dynamics of Global Urban Expansion. Transport and Urban Development Department, The World Bank, Washington D.C, p. 205. [12] Huang, J., Lu, X. X., & Sellers, J.M. (2007). A global comparative analysis of urban form: applying spatial metrics and remote sensing. Landscape and Urban Planning 82(4), 1847197. [13] Wu, J., & Plantinga, A. J. (2003). The influence of public open space on urban spatial structure. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 46(2), 288-309. [14] Shelton, T. (2008). Visualizing sustainability in urban conditions. WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, 113, 253-262. [15] Downey, D. C., & Reese, L. A. (2017). Sudden Versus Slow Death of Cities: New Orleans and Detroit. [16] Eisinger, P. (2014). Is Detroit dead? Journal of Urban Affairs, 36(1), 1-12. [17] Eisinger, P. (2015). Theorizing the Death of Cities. Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioural Sciences: An Interdisciplinary, Searchable, and Linkable Resource, 1-9. [18] Reese, L. A. (2006). Economic Versus Natural Disasters: If Detroit Had a Hurricane. Economic Development Quarterly, 20(3), 219-231. [19] Tabb, W. K. (2015). If Detroit is dead, some things need to be said at the funeral. Journal of Urban Affairs, 37(1), 1-12.
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COVID remains a ravaging force across the world. The spate of deaths and forced isolation persists despite all odds. Barely halfway into January the death count alone presents a significant foreboding of what 2021 may portend. And it is really unnerving that we are getting used to people dying daily at such record numbers. We need the scientists driving key decisions on science and medicine, and planners and strategists working alongside them. I had some interesting conversations last week on ‘hard’ versus ‘soft’ disciplines. It is thought provoking how funders of research often seek the former with vigour, ignoring other key knowledge areas that are needed alongside them. Consider the COVID vaccine distribution debacle we are currently experiencing, the scientists have done their part in developing the vaccines, but the networks and planning needed to get them effectively and efficiently delivered is not the job of scientists. Given that we are now in an era that most traditional ideas and ideals are failing or have been proven inadequate, we must be poised to rethink how we do everything. Thus, ignoring obvious sights and sounds of change is no longer possible as information of all kinds is available for people to find, use and misuse. We are now in the lane of hard truths and focused actions where the only way out is to focus on the issue. The position taken to address the genuine concerns of people must be to respond ethically and constructively and to forge ahead productively. Suppose we could ask the following questions. Should systems be built to stimulate self-recovery upon disruptive impact, refocus and transmute to new forms or resist new possibilities that jettison existing structure? What is the best route to take in an increasingly volatile world, given the risk involved? In resilience studies, there are guidelines for decision makers. The OECD [1] conducts extensive studies on resilience, and in a 2014 report, I identified two critical elements in the planning for resilience: a thorough understanding of the risk landscape and how to cushion and protect the system accordingly. But in a situation when the disruption defies logic, like COVID, who do we rely on to provide the strategic insights and leadership? For example, in a study by Arlington Research and the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) nearly half of those in decision making positions could not ascertain that their organization is committed to strategic leadership [2]. One major reason good organisations fail is often due to the fault lines in translating knowledge into actionable steps that key stakeholders can buy into. This is often indicative of how much risk appetite or aversion decision makers have. For example, an organisation that seeks to be agile will usually be structurally flexible and would have business rules that can support that. In resilience thinking, the hard choices are not overlooked or avoided, and they not only make it into the decision room, but into the plan. Explaining Resilience: Retail Industry Responses to COVID-19 Impact In responding to the impact of Covid-19 lockdowns, retailers have shown tremendous resilience across the retail ecosystem. Those who haven’t figured out how to stay relevant and in business have either closed shop completely or are raking in losses that may ultimately force them to do so. But despite the obvious challenges, many retailers have managed to show off their resilience. Two discourse examples are presented here: Co-op and Asda. For Asda, it doubled down on its efforts at embracing change beyond simply enabling a seamless online shopping process, by focusing on the whole shopping experience for its customers with its new fleet of e-vehicles to facilitate its home delivery [4]. This e-vehicle deployment is also part of Asda’s acts of responsiveness to reduce their impact on the environment, and also of inclusiveness for more accessible use of the roads by pedestrians. For Co-op, which currently has the most availability in the Deliveroo app it has been expanding its online delivery of orders to shoppers across the UK not losing sight of its eco-friendly home delivery services [5]. Compare the actions of these two retailers to that of Primark, which is responding differently. The latter has chosen to ignore the seismic impact of the pandemic’s disruption on the retail industry and the deactivation of physical spaces and places. This positioning may be emblematic of any number of issues that we can surmise around the agility of the business or the ideology of its leadership; but it is often quite costly to the brand. For example, Primark had raked in £2 billion in losses from slump in sales as most of its stores remain shut through the repeated lockdowns [4]. Even where the stores open, they are causing worsening shopping experiences for customers due to social distancing rules and other restrictions. And these losses will be passed on to customers as higher prices. There are other negative impacts to such a lack of responsiveness to change, one of which is the compounding loss of useful learning and the learning curve to transmute quickly into more responsive channels that are key to any future expansion. Thus, for retailers, like Asda, the value accruing across their internal and external publics as a result of this agility, is huge, even when such a bold stance means the business may be currently spending more on the new channel. But for retailers like Primark, the implication of their position in the long run is at best, unknown, as many high street clothing retailers, such as the Arcadia group that owns several high street stores, like Topshop, are closing shops, and others that are online suggests that the costs of running digital channels can be high. On a deeper dive, there are advantages to a firm’s agility in the time of resilience. The ability of retailers, like Asda and Co-op to adapt quickly to change may explain the propensity to connect the dots to the needs of their communities, in a positively relevant way. Asda on its part has demonstrated a sound focus on the issues by its investments in digital inclusion, donating laptops to children who cannot afford one for their distance learning education. For Co-op the contribution is quite ingenious, the delivery drivers wear masks with the inscription “I’ve got time to chat” to encourage customers to take time to chat with them if they need to [6]. This idea came about in response to the issue of isolation and loneliness that have become the new normal in a COVID world. And it is an example how such intuitive gestures may have as much impact as donations. Thus, Asda and Co-op did not only respond with agility during the pandemic’s disruption, but also in ways that are demonstrable of an understanding of the issues around responsiveness and inclusiveness. In contributing value to their various publics and community, therefore, these brands excelled whilst others remained disillusioned and, in some cases, reticent to the pull of change. And whilst most of the retailers in the UK have continued to exhibit tremendous optimism, those that have tanked had, by an inability to form successful alliances and transmute to hybrid or digital versions of their brick and mortar selves. Could this agility be ‘resilience’? Quite frankly, it’s more likely than not that an agile business will adapt to new or emerging realities in demonstrable forms of resilience. But further exploration and analysis of the phenomenon is needed to duly generalise. Thank you for your kind attention and feel free to contribute to the comment section. Yours truly, Shade Adepeju-Joseph Dip M MA MS PMP FCIM References [1] OECD (2014). Guidelines for resilience systems analysis, OECD Publishing. [2] Stallard, P. (2020, December 02). CIM & Arlington Research: What's driving your decision? Retrieved January 03, 2021, from https://www.arlingtonresearch.global/are-business-leaders-using-data-before-developing-strategies-and-implementing-tactics-cim/ [3] In Statista. Retrieved January 17, 2020, from https://www.statista.com/statistics [4] Stevens, B. (2021, January 22). Primark's refusal to go online could mean "the start of the end" for the beloved brand - Latest Retail Technology News from Across the Globe. Retrieved January 23, 2021, from https://www.chargedretail.co.uk/2021/01/21/primarks-refusal-to-go-online-could-mean-the-start-of-the-end-for-the-beloved-brand/ [5] Nott, G. (2020, October 21). Co-op ramps up online home delivery service across Scotland. Retrieved January 18, 2021, from https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/online/co-op-ramps-up-online-home-delivery-service-across-scotland/649562.article?itm_source=Bibblio&itm_campaign=optimised_end_article [6] Stevens, B. (2021, January 11). Co-op drivers to wear "I've got time to chat" badges amid efforts to tackle lockdown loneliness - Latest Retail Technology News from Across the Globe. Retrieved January 18, 2021, from https://www.chargedretail.co.uk/2021/01/08/co-op-drivers-to-wear-ive-got-time-to-chat-badges-amid-efforts-to-tackle-lockdown-loneliness/ This piece was inspired by the sudden changes imposed on all facets of our lives, public spaces and cities in 2020, due to Covid-19. And it speaks to how it redefined the priorities of our holiday seasons, and upended Christmas.
“…we cannot continue with Christmas as planned” were the spoken words of the British Prime Minister -Boris Johnson on Saturday morning, barely a week to Christmas. And instantly, for most, Christmas plans came to a screeching halt, and their hopes, of end-of year festivities that typically lead into the brand-new year were crushed. Before I proceed, I would like to commiserate with all those who had lost their loved ones to this historic pandemic and are grieving. I am saddened about the news of children, who died, lost a parent or were orphaned. My heart goes out to those isolated, like our elderly, the frontline workers and other vulnerable population of great men and women, who have been dying needlessly, and daily too, due to this pandemic, and our nation’s lack of preparedness and resilience. The year has become symbolic of a dark winter courtesy of this creepy pandemic. And in this uncanny nature, it is on the prowl again, this time, aiming fully at Christmas. Suffice it to say then that it is not the PM that is trying to steal our Christmas, rather, it is the unpredictability of this virus that is to blame. Thus, Covid-19 is the proverbial grinch that may very well steal the 2020 Christmas. Pre-Covid Cities and Spaces Until this virus came barrelling into our world, cities and the holiday proclivities, like Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas have existed successively and beneficially. And at Christmas time, cities worldwide have often imbued their public spaces and places with the bright hues of red, blue, yellow and green lighting. All lit up as early as possible, shinning ready for Christmas, and making the waiting, worthwhile. But the pandemic’s impact this year have thrust cities on a collision course with ‘change’. Change, an often-placid word of momentum, has become eclectic this year 2020 as it depicts more of lockdowns and restrictions than movement. Thus, to state that the force of Covid-19 on our cities and on this year’s holiday season has been brutal, is an understatement. It has been cataclysmic. To those that cherish Christmas and to those that don’t, it is evident that truncated experiences of traditions like Christmas, Kwanza and Hanukkah will be awkward. The elaborate partying, cooking, visits with family and friends, travelling, and so on, are fixtures of this period, whether you are participating or not. These occasions have assumed their irrefutable positions in the world’s end-of-year ordering of time, and holiday seasons, and most people like that very much. Consider global cities, like Las Vegas, a host to perhaps, the biggest technology exposition in the world, known as the CES. This week-long event that has lighted up the daytime scenery of the Las Vegas strip, brighter than its Casinos at night, every first week of the year, for decades; will for the first time since inception be held virtually in 2021. That means, no physical connection to the venue or the products will be possible. And if you have ever attended the CES, you’ll know what that means. I have been a regular attendee for some time now. And while I was there last year, I had the opportunity to take a ride in a self-driving car, the first of its kind in the USA. This type of experience with nouveau products and first to market ideas will simply not be possible, no matter what they come up with, online. In 2020, approximately 170,000 people attended the Convention. Think about the losses to the hospitality industry, the airlines and other businesses that have come to rely on the flow of tourists, exhibitors and delegates to such a huge Convention. And across other major cities, worldwide, there are other examples of cancelled events and truncated experiences too numerous to mention. Thus, as I ruminated on how we live and thrive in our cities, communities and homes, and the various organised patterns that we observe in them, there is that inevitable drawing of these three elements -Cities, Christmas, and Coronavirus. It is incontrovertible that the continuity of things and our resilience is inextricably linked to the state and health of our cities, and the wellbeing of people and communities that populate them. Milieu and Vicissitudes of Christmas This chary rendition of Christmas, predicates on its historical contexts and antecedents and culminates in its discernible and observable elements, which are inextricably woven and adorned in the observance of the yuletide. It is this exceptionalism of Christmas, which by the way, is known as ‘Noel’ in French that led me to immerse myself in this writing. Whether or not it’s true, in historical contexts the origin of Christmas has been proximate to pagan worship. In my introspection of the plausibility of that assertion, I deemed it necessary to find well written books about the specifics of traditions centred around the lunar year, as Christmas. I also focussed on the meaning of terms. I found that while the term, ‘pagan’, may allude to ‘unholy worship’ of some ‘unholy people’; in the etymology of the word in a basic search of the Dictionary, the meaning, in the contexts of the primeval people or practice, indicates a condition of being ’unrefined’ or ‘old -fashioned’. This is not in terms of their worship of anything, but the natural ways they were doing things (i.e., acts of celebration, either in music, in thanksgiving and sharing) at those times before the advent of Christianity. And in a book, I found adequate for the purpose, titled “Christmas: A Candid History” the author explicates on certain key concepts in the celebration of Christmas. First, on why the celebration is in the last week of December, and why it involves such show of exhilaration and sharing of gifts. As the author explicates, the time of Christmas marks the time of the winter solstice. These were all parts of a pattern that “predated Christianity” (Forbes, 2008) with origins in ancient Rome. In addition, the use of the evergreen tree, which is a tree that never wanes, was also emblematic of survival and hope in harsh winter, serving as an evidence of life in the midst of very little or none. Likewise, the decorations and other things that adorn the Christmas tree were to simulate the sparkle of life, beauty and hope. And of course, this was important to the people as they cope with the harsh realities of winter in those dark ages before much of the inventions of modernity (Forbes, 2008). Thus, while the traditions of Christmas have evolved symbolically in the trappings of it (the adornments and ornaments, and other synthetic objects were fashioned after their true likeness) in substance; the essence of Christmas remains the same - captured in the holiday spirit of love, gratitude, carols, and joyful giving. Christmas will always be about basking in celestial air of love, joy, benevolence and euphoric reciprocity centred around the birth of Christ, the saviour of the world. It will continue to transcend the orbits of such impediments as race, class and culture, ever triumphant as a global language of love and selflessness. This is the language of Christmas. Therefore, in this pandemic ridden year, in particular, the message of compassion for the weak amongst us, the expression of inclusion, diversity, joy, godliness, empathy and hope of a new dawn, must resonate. And we do need focussed prayers for the survival of the human race and the planet. To this end, my message to everyone today, is not to despair. Do remember the evergreen tree and how it prevails over the dark days of winter and be rest assured that this dark winter, too, shall pass. Besides, there are many ways to engage, now, virtually than at any time, before. So, continue to follow the directives for staying at home, while you keep on connecting to all your loved ones. Before I sign off here, let me share some awe-inspiring Christmas-themed historic events with you:
What else can I say? Have An ‘Elfy’ Christmas! Reference Forbes, B. D. (2008). Christmas: A candid history. Univ of California Press. Shade Adepeju-Joseph, DipM MA MS PMP FCIM Columnist and Editor Prior to what can be described as the great upset of the century, brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic that exposed key areas of unpreparedness, cities were inflexibly ingrained in customs of social interactions and proclivity, epitomized by norms of unconstrained use of human and natural energy, and space.
Most importantly too, cities were increasingly becoming quite hard to manage as they continually make room for more people than they can sustainably cope with, fetching ills in pollution, overcrowding, traffic congestion and crime. Thus, to ponder on the workings of a typical boisterous city, is to rekindle flashbacks of wanton messiness, reminiscent of the pre-pandemic days. Furthermore, these immutable attributes: unabating and unpausing CO2 emissions, hyper-congestion of traffic and pedestrian activities, overpopulation, crime and inequality, often imperilled booming cities. Although, this representation of how things subsisted in cities prior to much of 2020 may not evoke the essence of the proverbial halcyon days; in the way things were, it was a time of relative calm and consistency. For instance, all stakeholders commuting and planning within them, having no alternative frame of reference were somewhat managing to find their calm within the storm. The obvious routines in how the ecosystem of cities were wired bred needless commotion and bottleneck as much of their congestion stemmed from the traffic of the throngs of commuters and single occupancy vehicles that overwhelm their limited spaces, due to the concentration of offices, high street retail shops, and organisations in them. This medley is further exacerbated by constraints presented via the ordering of events around set time for city people to mingle and get their daily economic activities done. The standardised timing of events (opening time - lunch time - closing time) compels workers and other users alike to flock en-masse in and around cities, placing significant pressure on city infrastructure and the utility of city spaces. In addition, should the compounding effect of the forces of nature; elicited by weather perturbations like rain, cold and heavy winds be considered, their inescapable and incessant negative impact on the autonomy and wellbeing of users and commuters alike, present an odd coupling. But as stakeholders helplessly observe and haplessly bemoan the otherworldly scenery of ‘great quiet’ and ‘mass solitude’ produced by the Covid-19 lockdowns; the unconstrained interactions of people (hugging, talking and shaking hands), places (teeming and brimming with movements) and processes that this zombie like scenery replace, cause the often limited definition of resilience to percolate into unchartered territory. While to the untrained eyes this change may appear to be transitory, and little more than an unwelcome distraction; there is an unveiling of clear paradigm-shifting distinctive insights to those who plan cities and to the research and project management inclined. Thus, as a researcher, these observations pose to me, the following questions: Should the rethinking of cities engender innovation that wholly support inclusivity, resilience and responsiveness? Should the practitioners in the myriad domains of pedagogy and research boldly confront the evanescence of the once rigid reality of resilience as availability? To this end, this column by its monthly delivery will channel the events of 2020 to exploratorily and explicatively enact alternate frames of reference, using examples from all around the world on how new experiences are distilling the old to a rethinking of cities and public spaces. Yours truly, Shadé Adepeju-Joseph DipM MA MS PMP FCIM |
About ShadéHello! I am Shadé Adepeju-Joseph, and I will be a columnist on the Blog team. Archives
February 2021
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