Quarantine in the City has Resulted in a New Collectivity

Residents attend the “Freedom of Comedy Protest” in Toronto’s Bickford Park

Photo: Kosta Derbish

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a fear of the unknown that was most unsettling. As our society crept slowly into shadow, there was a growing realization that the airborne virus would have a drastic impact on city life around the world. Working as an urban planner and designer in Toronto, I often observe patterns and behaviours of human interaction with the built environment. However, during the pandemic, I have noticed a distinct change in the relationship between Torontonians and their city.

The Lead-Up

With news that the virus had made the dreaded leap closer, from China to Europe, social media clips began to circulate from the hardest hit areas. I can recall seeing one vignette of a Sienese street scene where residents filled the quarantine silence with a traditional hymn, sung amongst neighbours and between homes. Through song, it seemed as though a collective soul of the quarter was gaining solace. In medieval Sienna, its contrade are renowned for their rich and layered identities, having developed over the ages. As was historically the case, times of struggle produced the tightest communities.

First Contact in Toronto

When the virus had eventually washed upon the shores of Lake Ontario in mid-March, our city’s initial reaction was to turn inward. Transit systems and places of work and gathering were shuttered. With the population in lockdown, our immediate family and roommates remained the only people that could satiate our innate need for human connection. The millennial motto “Netflix and Chill” never rang so true. During the time of day previously referred to as “business hours,” those of us lucky enough to still be employed worked from home. The home now signified a place of work as well as rest. Transition to this more fluid lifestyle has not always been easy. Those laid off have been left to face the quarantine silence head on.

How are we to react when the ability to connect with our fellow human beings has been taken away? Over the early spring, visits to the supermarket and strolls along previously utilitarian streets were poor substitutes for addressing our basic needs of movement, society, and fresh air. COVID-19, has single-handedly ushered in a new age of constraint. In stark contrast with our pre-pandemic lives, limitless communication from our smart phones now leaves us unfulfilled.

Yet something is changing in Toronto as the weather has improved. Surely, as social beings, we could not be locked down in perpetuity (or perhaps we’ve just exhausted all the best Netflix content). The inability to gather in a standard setting has given us impetus to create renewed ways of being together that would not have happened without the backdrop of a pandemic. It might be ironic to think that having something so essential taken from us, has recalibrated our value system so that we now embrace it.

Reinventing our Spaces of Gathering

For those working from home, or not at all, time gained from the usual daily commute and a lack of social stimulation from the workplace has pooled in us a reservoir of angst and energy. Where before, we would massage our tired minds with Netflix and Chill, now there is a more fervent will to engage. But this summer is different. We don’t have complete freedom to attend Toronto’s bars, stadia, or street festivals as in years past. A new environmental condition has necessitated the creation of a new type of space.

Since the rate of infection has dropped, Torontonians are experiencing their city in new and authentic ways:

• Renewed engagement with the front porch, or balcony headlined by, “The Great Clamoring of Kitchenware to our heroic frontline workers”;

• Occupation of surplus greenspaces and parks for sunbathing, drinking, and picnics; (parks are the new bars!)

• Pervasiveness of commercial speakeasys;

• Rooftop concerts performed to distanced crowds;

• Backyard get togethers resulting in song and debate;

• Skateboarders carving up the Gardiner Expressway;

• Yoga in the grass;

• Families exploring their neighbourhoods along now deserted roadbeds;

• Impromptu lawn concerts on quiet streets; and,

• Citizens experiencing the healing capabilities of their city’s ravine system.

The Black Lives Matter movement has highlighted the single most vital act that can occur within the public arena: the protest. Here and abroad, the pandemic has assisted in creating the ideal conditions for public dissent towards systemic racism.

COVID-19 has provided us with a motivation to discover these new commons. These “spaces of the city” that, during quarantine, have allowed us to distil what is now most essential – to be human, together, two metres apart.

If there is to be even the slightest silver lining to this pandemic, it might be that we consider retaining this newfound sense of togetherness. Perhaps, the collective will to meet a great challenge is necessary to help us realize our essential truth, that is, we are better together. Maybe the importance we have placed on technology and our smartphones to “stay connected” has been outweighed by our reliance on them. Maybe, in the end, we just need more of each other.

As I write this essay from my room, I can hear the symphony of life outside. My contrada is alive.