The post COVID-19 street: emerging practices and new urban dynamics

Abstract

This paper has supported an ongoing investigation to empirically approximate the proposal
of "thematic cartographies" for a physical and social distancing in a small segment of the
Historic Center of Puebla City, but in no way does it represent a definitive result given the
need to develop into a significant number of examples to establish the recurrence of initial
observations. This is a small-scale exploratory study.

A reflection is offered on the return to the "new normality" after the scourge of the COVID-
19 pandemic, and the opportunity that this represents to take a definitive leap towards what
we can call "the streets of the future".
Only some of the emerging proposals that have raised the spatial reconfiguration of the street
as a starting point in post-COVID-19 urban design are reviewed here.
As a conclusion, it is confirmed that we are facing a valuable opportunity to transform our
traditional streets into complete streets. The sudden reconfiguration of the streets could also
collaborate in achieving the objective of cities on a human scale, which would undoubtedly
improve the citizens' perception of the street, and too reinforce the emotional ties established
with it.