While we might not know all that the pandemic has wrought, we do know that it allowed us to notice the world differently and that this alternative viewpoint could have profound consequences if we don’t just snap back to our old ways of being. In the face of nearly 5 million deaths, it feels fraught to say that there are a lot of positives to come from Covid-19. But the ideas and opinions that are now emerging seem more capable of meeting the needs of our planet than traditional mental models which are so obviously failing us.   

This year, Right Angle has a strong focus on bringing city back. We are dedicating our time to client projects and our own start-up businesses that will make the greatest positive impact on cities as they begin to get up off the mat. We intend to get into all the physical and mental cracks that have opened over the past two years – the broken parts and dark spaces of the city, that can be reshaped to demonstrate the extraordinary creative potential of this time. We don’t have a plan to finish – just a plan to get started and five guiding beliefs to see us through.

1. Cities are our finest achievement as a species.

They represent our best efforts to get along and the turnkey to any hope of addressing climate change. Cities must be more relevant in the future and any talk of their death is folly – we couldn’t all walk, drive, ride or fly away from them, even if we wanted to. 

2. Great cities don’t happen by accident.

They take intention and effort. Anyone of reasonable means can intervene in the life of their city. If we just leave the responsibility for creating places to governments and property developers, then we should stop complaining about where we live. 

3. Cities are not plantations.

We must break the tendency to simply repeat what is working and scale it like a crop that needs to be harvested. Cities are complex urban jungles that rely on variety for their vitality. The great parts are hard – if not impossible – to replicate and that uniqueness is the foundation of a strong sense of place.

4. Cities are not just for people.

Sorry Jane Jacobs, but there is more to it than that. How people live in cities informs how other species live elsewhere. Cities also exist as places for capital, technology, information, ideas, design and many other forces that sometimes compete with our anthropogenic view of the world. It’s not enough to just make people happy. 

5. Place leadership is not a popularity contest.

Cities are a living conversation between competing interests. How we address and live with our differences is more important than believing that everybody can have what they want. The placemaking industry might have reduced city-making to an Insta-contest, but true place leadership knows that it's often the ugly, the hidden, the compromised and the difficult that matters most.