Strategies for Post-Urbanization

In the beginning of 2020 the world was a continuous space of mass activities of people: mass transit, mass tourism, mass migration, mass commuting. It was a descendant of “The Revolt of the Mass”, indicated by Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset in 1929. Pandemic of COVID19 has brought this economics of masses to the state of a near collapse. Behavior of people has radically shifted from mass to individual patterns. The lockdowns appeared a kind of forced socio-spatial experiment on adaptation of global population to new circumstances beyond common urbanization models. Presented study has analyzed these new patterns of living in urban space during the pandemic with Moscow as a sample area. Different aspects of daily life have been studied through lens of data on peoples’ spatial behavioral patterns: mobility (big data of commuting intensity and trajectories, open-data of transport services apps), daily life (internet open sources on studies of people stayed at home or left the city, density and location of commercial establishments still working, most popular requests queried through searching machines, open data on food delivery services coverage) and work (internet open sources on studies on share of employees working distantly). The study started during so-called “self-isolation mode” in the spring of 2020 when city dwellers were locked in their homes. It has revealed significant changes of life style patterns. Living environment has shrunk into limits of a “zero-spaces” namely urban or countryside residential unit, supported by immediate urban or countryside area of walking and self-entertainment and fast developing critical infrastructures of food delivery, online based medical and transport services and accessibility of Internet. The emergence of network of “zero-spaces” is an evidence of emergence of a new type of habitable environment which key features are very different compared to continuity and unevenness of space of the super city: - Location and density of built-up area are not preconditions of good access to services and critical infrastructure - Connectivity is more important than centrality - Life-style can be basically the same either in urban, suburban or rural landscapes. In 2021 next stage of studies has revealed that coverage of delivery services continue to expand even under condition of no restrictions on daily trips in Moscow urban agglomeration. It features further development of an isotropic environment where accessibility of basic services and job are uniformly accessible. This led to conclusion that pandemic has launched or sped up development of a next stage of evolution of system of human settlements – post-urbanization which means the process of elimination of dependency between type and location of physical landscape, degree of area centrality and accessibility of jobs and critical services. A shift to post-urbanization will soon demand relevant planning strategies. Compared to urbanization, post urbanization is not a fate of rural to urban or suburban transformation. It is a choice of desirable type of surrounding natural or artificial environment and intensity of personal contacts in a real space. It is also new values of time freed of commuting and quality of “small space” in proximity. According to results of presented study there are several strategies relevant to these new conditions. The first is to support expansion of new critical infrastructures to provide daily services and access to job opportunities regardless of location. Next one is adjustment of existing built-up environment for variety of new life styles based on even accessibility to new infrastructures. Altogether these approaches will allow spreading new life styles over existing settling system and encouraging of redistribution of population according to ecosystem carrying capacity instead of further urban expansion.