London should set its sights on not just a post-COVID future but a post-racism one.

That was one of the key points made at the Next Gen Sounding board on post-COVID urbanism last week, following a period of social unrest and protests both here and in the US.

Jay Allan, account director at London Communications Agency said that, as a half-Indian person with BAME background, he was ‘constantly thinking’ about the issue and has always suffered racism but ‘nowhere near’ to the extent black people are continually subjected to. ‘It shouldn’t just be a post COVID world, it should be a post-racism world looking at how we tackle not just future viruses but also health inequalities’, he said. Allan pointed to new Public Health England data showing that BAME communities - and especially black communities - are more affected by COVID-19. ‘These are the things that really should be at the forefront of our mind when we are building new cities and when we’re developing an existing one. How can we help support black communities, brown communities like mine – every community, really, and making sure that we have cities that are fit for everyone’.

Allan went on to discuss his thoughts on changes needed in cities such as more ‘flexibility in mind’, perhaps smaller office spaces with more voice-activated, touch-free surfaces, better 5G connectivity to allow for more working from home, and a new focus on building more housing and public space, again to contribute to better health outcomes.

Chaired by Selasi Setufe, sites programme manager at BeFirst and member of Black Females in Architecture, said diversity needs to be the subject of thought for the professions, and for our cities, extending as it does ‘from everything from diversity in gender and diversity in race, diversity in culture, diversity in ways of working, diversity in all of our experiences, our lifestyles and our beliefs. The list is really endless’, she said, ‘and you can start to see how so many intersectionalities come into play with any of those things and how they manifest in design in our built environment’.

The session here also raised points and opinions including: