Rebuilding our society means making our cities healthy

In the opening pages of Skin in the Game, Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes ‘you will never fully convince someone that they are wrong; only reality can. Our new reality is shaping out in front of us. When the hard working scientists identify vaccine-related ways for us to pick up society and the economy again we’re going to return to a different reality. A different one born from a painful economic collapse, a sense of priorities shifted, and one of different public health. I like to believe that the industry of placemakers is going to lead in its responsibility to move our societies in the positive direction needed and not return to the past. Time to heal We will all need to work harder mentally to rebuild our businesses. If a goldrush mentality of activity takes place when the doors are back open, we’re going to bring on the next wave of ill health. Metaphorically speaking, we’ve just fractured our knee ligaments and need to take things slowly before rushing back to running marathons otherwise we’ll pull hamstrings all the time. The added mental load of re-establishing business pathways will be taxing. From the chief executive to the junior project manager it’s going to require greater mental energy than before to get back to speed and solve new problems our jobs now face. Our friends, family and colleagues will be coming out of varying traumatic experiences. Psychological trauma disrupts our biological system in many ways. Many people who experience an acute traumatic event, such as the one we are currently experiencing, can be at risk of mental disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder and other stress-related disorders. Placing high workloads on people without proper management will cause greater mental illness issues as increased cognitive load and stress meets a disrupted and weakened system. Mental health accounts for over half of all working days lost owing to ill health, without good people management it will only lead to poorer business performance and worse at-home life. Taking stress out of the equation In times of healing it’s integral that our bodies do not experience further stress, which can add to an already fatigued biological system. However, as we demonstrate through our research urban environments, from the suburbs of Southall to the inner city blocks of Somers Town and Marylebone, are replete with urban stressors that wreak havoc on our biological systems. People’s immune systems will be low and many of us susceptible to relapse into other illnesses. The supply chain of the built environment is dirty and we have an imperative to ensure we do not burden healing citizens with unethical environmental stressors just because it suits our P&L sheets. Our collective job now is to turn the city into a doctor, and not allow it to become another virus. While many of us will have the wherewithal to bounce back, our society is not equal in this game. There is biological inequality in our cities. On the frontlines are the cleaners, nurses, shop-workers, and delivery people making sure our privileged comforts are maintained. We must not continue to do what we have done for decades and expose them and their neighbourhoods to toxic airborne chemicals from redevelopment or subject them to being one of the one in five Europeans that are exposed to harmful noise pollution daily. We must not make our heroes sick. That is not how we show gratitude. We are far from knowing what Covid-19 will bring, but we do know our new sense of purpose: to finally move our ways of working in line with the new urban health norms needed. A new normal The future won’t be the same as the past; to believe so is to prepare to fail. As climate change threatens to bring more uncertainties to the daily operation of our lives it becomes imperative that we adjust what we do. There are six key things we can do right now to make a difference to the collective healing needed. In the short term: Lower consumption habits until Amazon and co take responsibility for their air pollution and congestion issues; Dramatically increase construction-related sound absorption; For highly mobile and public transport using workers, ensure they have added wellness routines; In the long term: Change your supply chain to reduce the number of vehicles needed in construction; Ensure that ground floor materials on buildings are sound absorbing; Reduce dark tarmac and concrete flooring for natural materials. Artificial materials contribute to urban heat island effect, killing increasing numbers of people per year. The compounding negative effect of air pollution and hot summer air is greater than the sum of their parts. Reducing the environmental stressors our supply chains create will help give everyone the strength they need to bounce back from whatever comes their way. Our new normal is dawning upon us. The writing has been on the wall for the past few years that our ways of working were not sustainable. Urban health is a real estate issue. Without health, there is no economy, there are no people to fill a building. In my first piece for EG, I ended with the line: “Our legacy is not bricks and mortar, it’s the health of our neighbour and future children.” Today, that has never felt more true as we all wish health upon each other. Josh Artus is co-founder and director of CentricLabs