Meric KIRMIZI, Ondokuz Mayis University, Turkey
The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a reform of urban life in all social realms. Furthermore, it changed and blurred the boundary of public and private spaces in the city. While for example, office workers started to work from home partially or fully, city dwellers started to use public spaces more creatively for various purposes, such as in Place de la République or the banks of Seine in Paris. Although flexibilization—of time and space—had firstly entered the urban lexicon with post-Fordism, it began to penetrate other public domains where it became a necessary urban design element.
This study examines ‘flexible urbanism’ in terms of urban transport by focusing on the issues of intermodality and pedestrianization practices. It is a product of a personal experience of the curfew in Paris by a foreign and not French speaking visiting researcher and based on surveys with Paris residents—online—and local shopkeepers on Paris’ three shopping streets—on paper—in spring 2021. The findings reveal changes in Parisians’ daily mobility and working habits during the pandemic. Furthermore, it shows their opinions regarding the recent municipal practices of pedestrianizing Paris’ shopping streets. Paris shopping streets’ pedestrianization usually takes two forms: a temporal or partial pedestrianization applied only on certain days of the week as in Paris Respire and/or a simultaneous ‘cohabitation’ of pedestrians and motor vehicles.
These practices exemplify how public spaces, including urban commercial spaces can be used flexibly by different users for different purposes during an urban crisis. Yet this study also incorporates local shopkeepers’ rather negative opinions on the municipal agenda of full pedestrianization of central Paris. This plan can be interpreted as a fixation of the flexible use of Paris’ public spaces that has been working rather smoothly.
Mots clés : the pandemic Paris|flexible urbanism|intermodality|temporal pedestrianization|cohabitation
A102356MK