Over the course of the next few weeks, Oxford Urbanists will be publishing dispatches on what feels like an unprecedented era in modern history, both for cities and the world, during — and perhaps after — the COVID-19 pandemic. We want to know how cities are responding; what lessons we can learn for the future; and how we think cities might change indefinitely.

Case Study: Milan, Italy

The photo above was taken by Ettore Sottsass in 1993, in Hong Kong. The caption accompanying it is this:

"There are certain obsessions of modernity that I don't think are ‘tout court’ positive for the future. They are, among others:

a) Speed. Everything, absolutely everything, must happen ‘faster,’ or rather immediately. Immediately must happen the birth, the consumption and death of any event, of anything produced.

b) The Lightness. Man must eliminate the force of gravity, the weight. Everything must be light, very light and if it is not light, it must seem light. Everything must fly a little. A very famous engineer said: ‘it's nice to build higher and higher.’

c) Violence. Heroism, mortal risk, cunning, theft and murder are signs of strength, masculinity and victory.

The skyscrapers on the horizon contain speed, lightness, violence, cunning, theft and - why not? - perhaps even murder.

Who lives there?"

***

If we think of our cities before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, I think we could all agree that speed, lightness and violence were the hallmarks of our lives. Today, however, quarantine calls us back to calm: new rhythms, incredibly relaxed, are now imposed on the majority of the world’s population. Safe in our homes — at least those who can afford to be — we no longer feel so light, but we are dealing, each in a different way, with a new way of conceiving the passing of time; our projects, our relationship with ourselves and a few others. In this revised scenario, there are many individual reactions, but everyone seems to want to remain anchored to some kind of practice, to a 'doing' so as not to succumb to boredom.

We know, however, that in Italy, quarantine prevents us almost completely from leaving the home, so we must identify the space of doing within these confines.

The photo by the architect Ettore Sottsass shows a certain form of living: living in a house without balconies, with small windows, holed up in the darkness of a house in a large metropolis, on the tenth floor of a skyscraper. This could be considered a common and normal living condition. But, today, even more than yesterday, with the advent of this public health catastrophe, some houses seem better than others.

***

In the weeks following the decree that forced Italians indoors, I have noticed that in magazines and blogs attentive to social issues, there have been articles on the emergency that the coronavirus explosion has had in relation to prison inmates and the homeless. What the headlines in these articles attempt to say is that quarantine is an excellent measure to save the majority of the population, but that it is impossible to apply to those who do not have a home, or are forced to live in Italian prisons, which are known, above all, for being overcrowding. These distinct characteristics clearly clash with — and contradict — the basic rules of mutual distancing adopted to avoid the expansion of contagion.

On March 11, a Carabinieri patrol reported a homeless man who was in Via Crescenzago, Milan, on the grounds that he was in violation of the government decree [1]. The same article states that the reception and support centre, where the homeless person normally went, was closed due to the emergency. We know that there are similar stories out there. Many other people without a home were called back because they were sleeping in the area adjacent to Milano Centrale, the main train hub.

The housing emergency in Milan is old news. We know that the rate of inhabitants of the city of Milan has been growing steadily for ten years, so much so that, in 2019, we reached over 1.4 million residents[2]. This has caused the demand for apartments to grow exponentially, recreating the same vicious circle that many other European capitals know, made up of gentrification, concreting, and rent increases. Parallel to these phenomena, the municipal and regional administrations, especially the latter, have not responded in any way, except with the eviction of numerous occupied houses — despite the fact that most of the ALER-owned buildings (the Milanese company that deals with public residences) are uninhabitable, and the waiting list for a council house is endless, with dubious access criteria.

In Milan as much as anywhere else, the COVID-19 pandemic fits in a context that was already in emergency; one which, in this case, was characterized by housing exclusion.

***

These brief references draw attention to a huge issue in Italy: the right to housing.

This is an issue that might seem marginal, but in times of quarantine, it reveals itself in all of its drama. In trying to analyze the exceptionality of this issue in the new context created by the coronavirus explosion, I came across a recent article published in Jacobin Italia entitled Living without public spaces, written by Carlotta Caciagli. She dissects the similarities that can be found between the pre-COVID-19 urban plant and during it; in both cases, in fact, the places crossed by citizens are mostly private ones, where the subject must identify as a producer or a consumer. This discourse appears valid, both in terms of our habits in times of peace — just think of the aperitif at the bar; shopping at the mall on the weekend; or evenings at the discotheque — and, even more, for our condition in this 'time of war.’

All of those who have the opportunity must stay at home, living the private space par excellence. Of the others who cannot, we do not speak of, as it does not seem relevant to refer to those who cannot access private property, or risk losing it due to the suspension of production activities, and, in many cases, wages.

This crisis that exploded so suddenly, conditioning our lives in ways that none of us were ever used to, is letting the infinite contradictions of the dominant economic and political system emerge, making the social inequalities that this system generates reverberate ever so visibly.

I believe that that we can use important magnifying glass of a moment to notice two things:

1) In the governmental decrees issued in recent weeks, the subject of reference is based on the assumption is that we are all: equal; well-off; have a (welcoming) home to stay in; have the means available for smart-working, or distance learning; are part of balanced families within which it is automatic to live a peaceful environment; and have no addictions of any kind, or psychological and physical disorders. 

The law regulates interpersonal relationships in the name of public health, without considering the existence of pre-existing problems. In this way, the state, through its laws, addresses itself to a single subject; creates and normalizes it; and consequently rejects everything that was on the margins before, and that now cannot even be said to be on the margins, but tends to non-exist.

Can we think of solutions for the most fragile and the most afflicted by forced imprisonment? Various voices are rising in this sense: there are those who are asking for a quarantine income; those who are asking for prisoners’ release; those who are activating assistance numbers for female victims of violence; and those who, in this regard, are asking that a reported man be removed from the home where the victim lives. Can we demand that migrants and homeless populations be directed to new structures, designed specifically for this emergency? Can we suspend the payment of rents in cases where wages were suspended?

In short, there is a lot to think about and expect, since the decrees issued by the government do not consider borderline situations. Even if we do not want to think about the biggest emergencies, other seemingly unproblematic questions remain open. For example, are we sure that public education can ensure the right to study for all in the absence of in-presence teaching? Obviously not, if we think about the people who are dyslexic or have other learning disabilities, who need tutors in order to carry out the curricular work. Or that not all children have access to a Wi-Fi network. Or that not everyone even has a computer. In general, many do not have their own space in the house where they can carry out the remote distance activities that are increasingly expected of them. In short, when the space outside is completely lacking, we need to look at the space inside in order to try to take responsibility of the contradictions that our economic and social systems generate.

2) Without being able to cross that little public space to which our cities still offer access, the very possibility of encounter is constitutively lacking. By the term 'encounter,' I mean the most proper meaning of the term: the encounter is with the Other, the one who is different from me, and, therefore, is more often a Clash, above all else. Perhaps being forced to domestic imprisonment should send our thoughts back to that great space of action, that should be taken care of and attended as much as possible. It is only in the public space, in fact, that these different subjectivities can interact on a level of fair comparison, ignoring the origins and integrating the differences.

The examples of this inclusiveness that immediately come to my mind are the squares: in most Italian cities, squares — especially in the historical centres — are still essential points of encounter and sociality. They are those spaces that are taken for granted, but they are the lifeblood of a way of conceiving openness to the other that is being lost in other places. In Milan, for example, I have often noticed the absence of those places that are completely open to the public, and crossed by a heterogeneity of people so present in other Italian cities. In fact, in Milan as in many European cities, sociality — to go in search of the event, or simply to crystallize in such a way that each group finds its own point of reference and living space — tends to be privatized. It is increasingly difficult (and, in the end, undesirable) to meet the Other, the one who comes from another school, another city or, more likely, another socioeconomic background. In this scenario, an autonomous use of public space is also constantly criminalized and regulated by devices of various kinds. Just think of the restrictions and regulations introduced in many European cities to protect 'public decorum.’

***

Urban space is a bearer, like so many other areas of society at the moment, of meaning; a meaning that, when a city is uninhabitable, tells us something much more than when we used to inhabit it before. This reveals the interrelation between paying attention to the private environment of the house, and rethinking the public environment of the city.

In her article, Caciagli writes that "the domestic environment makes us individuals, but it is the public environment that makes us subjects. Without a collective space we are only contained and containable bodies.” Perhaps this is what we need to be aware of: that the struggles for the home — because we all have the right in practice to a dignified home — cannot be separated from an even more collective struggle. We need to claim the free and spontaneous use of public spaces. Giving value back to the public today seems, perhaps more than ever, an obvious urgency.

This is what the deserted city reveals to us, uninhabited in its streets and squares, where no open space belongs to us anymore: to satisfy always and only the private means to confine everyone to their own positions and origins; to give oxygen to the public, to the open space, the means in which we learn to meet others. Public space is, above all, the communicative and discursive space where language is affirmed and built; it is the place where, to put it in Wittgenstein’s words, one learns and repeats the gestures of a socially shared and solidified practice. That is, one learns to be together.

Let us try to remember how important this is when this is all over. Otherwise, there is a risk that the inequalities so evident in our homes will never be dampened and questioned in the outer space.  

***

Barbara Russo was born and raised in Naples. She graduated in philosophy at the University of Milan with a thesis on the concept of space from Michel Foucault. Her research interests are at the intersection between the question of the individual in the space and its declination in the modern metropolis. 

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[1] The decree-laws issued by the government to prevent the spread of contagion can be found here: http://www.governo.it/it/approfondimento/coronavirus-la-normativa/14252.

[2] ISTAT data.