UK coexists with coronavirus

Back to commuting: on the London tube after the UK lockdown started to ease, 18 May 2020

Tolga Akmen · AFP · Getty

Covid-19 seemed to suggest we really were all in this together. Lockdown meant lockdown. Yet stories of the wealthy escaping to islands, yachts and spacious retreats, or of the middle classes decamping to second homes, undermined the principle of common confinement. The constrained world of the urban many contrasted with the space and escape available to the affluent. As the lockdown slowly eases, the uneven exposure to risk and economic security of the time before Covid-19 may continue as we move to co-exist uneasily with the virus.

Our housing situation, personal wealth and the relative stability and security of our work lives significantly shape our experience of the crisis. And as Covid-19 implants itself in our social and economic life, divides around ethnicity, gender, region and class determine the roadmaps for life beyond lockdown. The crisis has highlighted the detachment and wealth of society's winners, many of whom returned resplendent after the bailouts following the 2008 financial meltdown. We realise with rising anger that political leaders demanding our concerted action to manage the risks of the virus, are, in many cases, the same as those who presided over work, housing and welfare policies that dismantled social supports and created widespread insecurity.

It is also clear that viral risks are unevenly distributed across social groups and places. At first it was claimed that the disease was superficially class-blind, but it was soon evident that low-paid female carers, insecure workers and minority ethnic groups bore the greatest risks (1). In the UK, we have learned that the mortality rate of minority ethnic groups is quadruple that of others, and that the people of poorer regions have also suffered far worse, about double the rate of deaths of the most prosperous areas (2). Historically embedded regional, social class and ethnic inequalities remain indicators of vulnerability.

In just two weeks, Devon and Cornwall police reported 300 calls complaining about newly arrived city dwellers. The weightless world of the well-off collided with the lockdown imposed on the majority

Attempts at escaping lockdown have been notable among the more fortunate. French officials did not allow a group aboard a private jet to alight on its way to the Riviera to ride out the lockdown at a second home (3); King Salman of Saudi Arabia sheltered on an island in the Red Sea. The rich went on moving, sheltering in places away from the viral risks: in the US, wealthy Manhattanites rented seaside homes at preposterous prices (4), while 545 private jets landed in the UK during lockdown (5). Affluent UK second homeowners (there are around 1.5 million) crowded the supermarket aisles of small towns and the seaside, risking the health of poorer populations while worsening longstanding tensions over their contribution to these local economies (6). In just two weeks, Devon and Cornwall police reported 300 calls over the Easter weekend with complaints about newly arrived city dwellers. The weightless world of the well-off collided with the lockdown imposed on the majority.

Who suffers most?

UK national coordination of the response to the virus has been undermined by politicians and advisors who moved about during lockdown, such as the chief medical officer of Scotland who had to resign after twice weekending at her second home (7). Members of Britain's more privileged classes treated lockdown, like many other rules and injunctions, as malleable or avoidable. The conditions of the precarious urban poor contrasted with those of the elite, many of whom gave video interviews from spacious homes, personal libraries and spare rooms converted into offices. Reports of hedge fund managers making millions on corona-backed investments by Conservative party donors (8) or private equity using financial muscle to snap up distressed assets highlighted the predatory nature of the sector; starkly juxtaposed with the vulnerability of the almost 10 million expected to be furloughed from work or facing eviction by private landlords.

Urban lockdowns most heavily impacted those with no outside space of their own, or meaningful access to public green space. We have learned again that the availability of safe, therapeutic space is not a given for all and is closely linked to inequalities of housing tenure (divides between homeowners, landlords and renters), income (stable and insecure employment) and wealth (those owning assets and those without). In poorer city zones, social life was effectively cancelled, while core institutions underwriting safety (the NHS, schools and social care settings) were compromised by a lack of political coordination and financial support.

The built environment is critical to our health and wellbeing. Detached homes with gardens and access to parks or green spaces intersect with established patterns of housing wealth. Those who own their homes, wealthier and with more secure employment, have generally been able to weather lockdown; many have even been liberated from punishing daily commutes. But the greater number who live in flats have struggled to maintain good mental health in compressed domestic spaces and with increased risks of contact in lifts. Around a third of London's homes are flats (1.2 million) in purpose-built blocks and nearly a half million more, many privately rented, comprise apartments in converted houses; these created often cramped and stressed conditions (9). There pressures were of course compounded by insecure work and low pay, inadequately tackled by the government's response which was primarily targeted at banks, landlords and businesses. A scheme to move all street homeless people into hotels was quickly abandoned, while private tenants await the end of a three-month suspension of evictions.

Staying at home to protect the functioning of the NHS has been critical to reducing the human cost. As the virus spread in London, as in mainland European cities, an email from the super-luxury Chelsea Barracks housing development ended with 'Stay home, Stay safe — we are all in this together'. Post-lockdown we may have to go on coexisting with the virus, and the divided world we inherited from a decade of austerity will be more clearly revealed (see Austerity is the killer, in this issue). But many will emerge into that world remembering the reports of escaping wealthy urbanites and the super-rich. Social bonds and common purpose are likely to be a short-lived experience.

We can already see that the poor, the insecurely employed and those in essential employment are exposed. Public transport was quickly over-filled and is likely to boost infection rates. The rightwing press baited school workers worried about returning to their jobs. Jacob Rees-Mogg, Conservative leader of the House of Commons and a wealthy investor, called for parliamentarians to return to Westminster to 'debate'. Teleworking professionals and people with personal drivers clamoured loudest for the mass to get back to work and restore a tanking economy that risked lower investor returns. There has been a strong sense of a class that thrives on the labour and risks of the weakest.

Sunrise visions

Whether or not testing improves or a vaccine or drug treatment is found, perhaps two possibilities lie ahead for urban life. One is the likely return of the old 'normal'. This may be a way forward, but would come with worse, more vicious conditions. Cities traumatised by the virus will be called upon to return quickly to economic life, with business vitality identified as the primary basis for resurgent social life and public health. Again the benefits will go to owners of financial and business institutions, insulating them from the worst financial risks. New rounds of austerity are predicted, to pay back the costs of furloughing workers. In the meantime the vulnerable urbanites will remain in isolation at home, fearful of contact with the young or the poor who continue to service a faltering economy. Leafy streets and insulated domestic pads will remain delivery points for an expanding range of mobile services supporting those on higher incomes.

In a competing vision of our urban future, at present hazed by the fumes of returning cars, we can hope for state investment to reward socially valuable labour, ensure the economic dignity of all and redirect investment into green transport and energy systems. Here we would also hope to see innovations in technology and distribution to engage and employ those looking for less alienating work. Streets would be widened for pedestrians and the disabled, and for safe space for exercise and social contact. Bicycle lanes would multiply. Key streets in the City of London and Canary Wharf have been closed; in regional centres like York, car lanes have been closed to permit pedestrians to distance safely; in Newcastle, residents put tyres in roads in a guerrilla move to create safe space. Extinction Rebellion activists exhort communities to spray bike symbols on paths and roadways to encourage diversity and the safety of street users. We can hope that urban space will be more widely redesigned and managed so the precariously employed and those forced to be exposed to street life remain safe, while facilitating what could be a more meaningful return to local social relations, support and food supply chains.

This could be a crossroads. Cities could be run more for people than profits, with depolluted and liberated social spaces where community and local life is rediscovered. Many have discovered that being forced to relinquish hypermobile and hyper-consuming lives in favour of frugality, social connectivity and reciprocity offers more meaningful rewards. A majority have said that they want an economy that values social, more authentic goals in life (10).

Will such sunrise visions fade after the worst of the crisis is over? If we get this wrong, the discovery of a vaccine or other solution to the virus may enhance the ability of the rich and mobile, and the corporate and political systems allied to them, to avoid contributing to the fairer society we want.

Source: mondediplo.com