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Enabling new ways of using urban pubic space during the COVID-19 pandemic

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Shortly after the spring COVID-19 lockdown, my neighborhood in Washington DC resembled a ghost town.

Bars, restaurants, and other retail stores started shutting down, while businesses, government offices, public libraries, schools, and parks were temporarily closed.

At night it was eerie. The silence was punctuated by occasional sounds of ambulances or fire truck sirens taking the next unfortunate person to the emergency room of the closest hospital.

Now that we know more about the corona virus, and how it is spread, many jurisdictions, business owners, educational institutions, and government offices have adjusted the manner by which they provide services to their customers, enable their employees to work, and students to learn. In general, over time these policies and practices have become more rational and less knee jerk in nature.

Most city parks and services have reopened but with restrictions. Signs prominently posted on the entrance to retail stores and other “third spaces” (semi-private locations), requiring customers to wear masks, and recommending that people social distance (not that everyone reads them or follows the directives), proliferate.

Most businesses, complying with recently passed city ordinances, are limiting the number of people who can be inside, and either setting up places where hand sanitizer is easily accessible or dispensing hand sanitizer upon entrance. Some urban public spaces like subway systems, and train stations have redoubled their efforts to clean surfaces, though much of this activity is simply hygiene theatre.

Many bars and restaurants (and retail stores) that survived appear to have done so by switching to take out orders through contactless on-line delivery, or curbside pick-up. Some eating establishments have even taken over nearby street parking spaces or parking lots to enable outdoor seating where social distancing is encouraged. Some jurisdictions have enabled pedestrian traffic by decreasing the speed limits on city streets, or closed down streets to encourage people to walk on the streets.

Still more needs to be done. As less people take public transportation for fear of contracting the virus, more creative solutions should be made for transportation, with a greater emphasis on pedestrian traffic and bike mobility. Where possible more roads should be closed to vehicular traffic and converted to pedestrian malls. More bike lanes should be constructed to enable cyclists to use them. Jurisdictions should be encouraged to give, or continue to give grants and interest free loans to small businesses to retrofit their business to operate in these times.

The future is now. In addition to implementing practices that will enable public space to be opened in a safe manner, we need to develop metrics to determine which ones work, including how these changes to our urban public space affect the constituent bodies that use them, and attempt to maintain them if they work for urban dwellers.

Trump gets COVID-19 and the world goes crazy

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This past week we learned that not only did Hope Hicks, President Donald Trump’s former trusted advisor contract COVID-19, but so did Trump and many of the people whom he closely associated with during a recent Rose Garden ceremony.

Predictably lots of people from the drunk at the end of the bar, to the army of pundits appearing on our major cable networks are talking about this situation.

Some are scolding Trump about his failure to seriously heed the advice of trusted medical professionals about preventing the transmission of COVID-19 including downplaying and mocking the evidence about the virus, and mask wearing. Others have joined the chorus of people who are basically saying that he got what was coming to him.

Then there have been a succession of scenarios spun about when, where, and to whom he has spread the virus.

Numerous predictions are floating around about the veracity of all these claims, and if true what this means for the near term. Some pundits like Michael Moore, have taken the conspiracy theory route, and have suggested that Trump’s contracting COVID-19 is just a ruse, a sort of October Surprise, and it was designed all along to create sympathy from selected members of the American public that will assist Trump win the election. Others have suggested that Trump’s contracting of COVID-19, is a way for him to save face if he loses the election.

In the background questions have been raised about what happens if Trump is incapacitated and Pence becomes the president? Will the Republicans temporarily hault their attempts to get Judge Amy Barrett installed to replace the vacancy left by Ruth Bader Ginsberg?

So what? What does this all mean? Have we really gotten closer to the truth? Probably not.

We are a news and gossip obsessed nation, suffering from collective attention deficit disorder, waiting for and hanging on to every small tidbit or morsel of information selectively released and creatively spun by those with vested interests or nothing else plausible to say.

Unless you work for the White House, and want to know whether to come into work tomorrow, all this speculation, like sports talk about the likelihood of a team winning the next big game, is one big distraction.

This distraction prevents us from doing our work, meaningful pursuits such as attending to and spending time with our loved ones, and following our goals and our passions. Whatever happens to Trump will have consequences for our country, but in the short term, in the day to day living we must do, is will have little effect on the progress we make on working towards our goals. And thus, we must put Trumps’ current bout with COVID-19 into perspective, see it as another distraction, and move forward with more meaningful work including but not limited to putting into putting in to place and ensuring a better and stronger democracy.

Rebel without a clause: The trouble with copyright and trademarks in connection with graffiti and street art

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Last week, Banksy, the elusive British street artist, or more specifically Pest Control, the company that represents him, lost a trademark case in the European Union Intellectual Property Office. They argued that because Pest Control had not used the image that Banksy created in order to generate income, during a specific period in time, then others (in this case a greeting card company) were free to exploit its use. Although the circumstances surrounding this case are both complicated and interesting, there are a handful of important takeaways from this series of events.

With few exceptions, graffiti and street art fascinates many people because of the way subjects and objects are depicted, the creator’s boldness and originality, and the considerable thought, care and skill that many writers and artists take in crafting their work.

There’s also a transgressive aspect to a lot of graffiti and street art. This work can confront large powerful interests without the necessity of engaging in violent protest that can be so destructive in terms of physical injuries and loss of human lives and property. That is why graffiti and street art are understood to be weapons of the weak.

This does not mean that graffiti and street art can’t be criticized. There are numerous context specific places where the application of graffiti and street art is generally frowned upon even by practitioners. This usually includes hate graffiti and when national parks and places of religious worship become littered with graffiti and street art. (I’m told, however that in Budapest, churches are hit because of their close association with the Communist past). I also find some of the rationales that some graffiti writers and street artists use to justify their work (e.g., like they are simply beautifying an ugly city or neighborhood, unlike museums that charge an admission, they are creating free art, etc.) to be a little hollow.

I find it a strange, almost hypocritical, when graffiti writers and street artists who choose to place their work on surfaces without the consent of the owner yet claim copyright or trademark infringement when the image is used by others to make a profit. I know there is a growing and significant body of law (such as The Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 in the United States) that has developed in this area, and it attempts to protect the rights of both the artist and the property owner. But the recent Banksy case is different.

I understand that a considerable amount of thought, planning, and labor may have been invested into the creation of many of the pieces, but to my mind it seems disingenuous to simultaneously transgress against a person or that entities’ property and then later claim that the owner or a third party (like a corporation) has now transgressed against them by making a buck and now not playing fair.

To me this would be equivalent to starting a fist fight with someone, the person who you hit ends up kicking your butt, and then you go to the police to complain that the fight was not fair. It seems hypocritical. Either accept the outcome or don’t pick fights with people who may whoop you. And by all means don’t appeal to a higher authority for justice in these situations.

This brings us back to Banksy, and other similar graffiti and street art practitioners. If you place graffiti and street art on a surface without the express permission of the owner of the property, no matter its importance or quality, you give up most rights to that work. And it should not come as a surprise when the person transgressed against is able to profit from the work you did.