New dynamics
of consumption

After forty years of logistics excess, the transport industry as a whole (but in this case the civil aviation one) seems destined to suffer a new stalemate. A first fact: air traffic from the 1980s to today has grown by about 7 times. It is therefore presumable that as a result of this pandemic, flights, especially low cost ones that allowed everyone to travel on medium and long routes, will experience a dry setback. Let’s try to understand better.

As the data already show, in the Covid 19 epidemic, the availability of travel (personal and goods) to and from different continents played a strategic role. This produced an inextricable web of movements which, in fact, paved the way for the spread of the virus.

The transport industry, no longer able to count on huge masses of travelers and strong economies of scale, will be monopolized by the big players. The only ones capable of facing the crisis and responding with adequate quality standards to the drop in collections. Thanks to the growing cost of tickets, airplanes and tourism in general will return to being an almost “luxury” item, reserved for a limited number of people, among other things “certified” also from a health point of view (see the chapter reserved for bio-technological tracking).

In the same way, short or medium-haul journeys, made using the car or other individual means, will explode. The population will try to adapt to the new scenario by trying to discover, or rediscover, the local identity and national beauties. The only ones that are easily reachable and capable of guaranteeing the presence of a controlled territorial area where protection protocols that meet criteria considered acceptable and safe are applied.

Even in the wake of a renewed ecological feeling, “slow & short” forms of travel will be promoted which will be more or less accepted based on the risk and compromise predisposition of the various tourists.

In any case, to avoid new epidemic outbreaks it will be necessary to take serious measures to avoid clearly unmanageable situations. For example, the promiscuity of a crowded beach in the height of summer: a constant in summer holidays that is no longer acceptable or sustainable.

Most of all, as mentioned, air transport will suffer. Certainly the economic pressures to return to a widespread and widespread transport industry will be felt in a powerful way. The disastrous fund of many airlines and the consequent threats of bankruptcy, together with the prospect of mass layoffs, will lead some governments to turn their heads in the face of medical evidence.

In the periods immediately following the reopening, the States that will yield to these blackmail will experience new widespread outbreaks and new lockdowns, even if limited in time. The more prudent countries, on the other hand, will create a network of protection and protection for the population, limiting travel and, if necessary, closing borders for even a medium-long period.

Not only that: the prospect of new future epidemics – very concrete and indeed increasing over time – will induce the population to move in a reduced way for many months or years, following different rules and an accentuated prudence criterion. Once the thirst for post-lockdown movement is exhausted, scientific evidence and new regulations will lead to a widespread feeling of prudence.

A new attention will come to light for informed choices also in the tourism sector. A widespread minimalism and a certain detachment from the forms of extreme cohabitation that were experienced in the great cathedrals of tourism will return to the fore, in favor of a more sustainable decentralization or dilution of presences. To encourage this process, companies will also adopt strategies to distribute the holidays at different times, so as to reduce the bleeding of employees and ensure production.

Urban alternatives

We have understood from the data – above all those that show us where the viral transmission vectors reside – how much the unification of people in delimited places corresponds to a significant risk. From cities to large holiday resorts, it will be necessary to imagine possible alternatives to reduce the contemporary influx of tourists and, when it is impossible, their distribution over large areas.

In cities in the southern hemisphere, where large slums exist in which poverty and ignorance triumph, this process will certainly be longer and more laborious. But even our modern cities will have to be ready to experiment with new forms of urban planning to cope with the changes that will take place. The big cities that will not be able to organize themselves in this sense run the risk of experiencing a slow descending parable.

Following the evolution of recent studies on the subject, the new cities will have to be organized according to rational and once again minimalist criteria.

From the conformation of the streets to the layout of the buildings, from the composition of the neighborhoods to the presence of public greenery, everything must be organized to allow easy sanitation, management and treatment procedures.

A form of control that could be good for our disordered and urbanist anarchist cities. Although the matter is still very fluid and subject to discussion, it must be said that this new form of urban rationalism could also be useful if calamities or other extraordinary episodes occur and immediate and localized intervention is needed in a single area. A first fact in favor of this thesis and a starting point to return to the image a truly “public” and shared space.

Not only that: due to the reduction in car transport – a process already underway in all cities – many architects and engineers will be busy imagining futuristic transport scenarios within the city areas. These will provide, for example, the downsizing of car lanes and a progressive extension of pedestrian and cycle lanes.

By reducing the areas reserved for cars by just a few centimeters, public and private transport can in fact be reorganized in order to stimulate the use of small or individual and light vehicles, electric, pedal etc.

This, together with the total or partial blocking of motor traffic in the various historic centers, could redesign the urban area by building that “city of the future” which until a few years ago seemed utopian but which today appears more likely than ever.