The Power of Place

In this week's episode of #CovidCityStories, four global citymakers - from Ecuador, Upstate, Oakland, and Oz - share their experiences, insights, and placemaking initiatives around our new Covid normal. The different vantage points of their stories and work show just how much place matters, again, both pre-Covid, during Covid, and as cities around the world begin to open, post-Covid. In particular, our new hyper-local reality has serious equity implications, or rather, inequity, which in turn make us all more vulnerable. 

This week, Mariela ( Founder/CEO of State of Place) shares her personal covid city story - an update of sorts, since she wrote her New Cities piece a little over a month ago now. Hear how Covid19 is impacting the "cultural" - identity, meaning, attachment - value of place, and how this pandemic has led to a deep mourning of the loss of her relationship with her beloved city, Shanghai. 

As a completely remote and distributed startup from Day 1, the State of Place team is used to all things - WFH - working from home. Indeed our Founder, Mariela as called coffee shops, couches, and kitchen tables all around the world, home (office) nearing two decades. So while we haven’t had to scramble to figure out how to do figure out Zoom (we’re also a software startup, so that helps!), there’s no question that day to day life under siege by this virus is decidedly not our normal.

And yet, as the weeks unfold, and we do our weekly “water-cooler” moments before our Zoom team meetings each Monday, it’s clear that the governance, policy, infrastructure, and design of the cities we each call home - which spans three continents - has a been impact on how disrupted our normal has been. So I thought it would be illuminating to bring you our own team’s stories from Oslo, Vegas, San Jose, and the Maryland DC suburbs. I know I have been struck by just how vastly an experience we’ve each had with Covid…and I’m hoping these discrepancies highlight how much our work as citymakers has mattered - and will matter that much more, as we all collectively are forced to embrace a “new normal.”

So without further ado, please listen to our CTO, Andy; Head of Business Development, Kelliann;  Machine Learning Scientist, Kaustubh; and Marketing Intern, Minah,  share a little about what it's been like for them in the age of social distancing, and what they think this means for cities, livability, and innovation moving forward. I hope you are inspired and uplifted by their heartfelt stories or that they bring you some solace.

This week's covid city stories bring you voices from Minneapolis, Miami, the Emirates, India, and Bethesda, sharing their thoughts, fears, and little moments of joy with you.