If there’s one thing that the COVID-19 has demonstrated, it is that humans are social animals who are prepared to die rather than go without community. This is a fact of much consternation with logical, sensible, paternalistic politicians and scientists. They would seem to be flabbergasted by those who simply refuse to follow lockdown rules in the face of their freedom to interact with others — family and community — even at the risk of their own sickness and death (never mind their responsibilities to the health of others).
While pandemic restrictions might be a once in a lifetime experience, it just as easily might not. Many individuals may again be trapped in circumstances that remove them from family, community or both. Builders and designers of community living space (including governments and architects) need to be mindful of this.
The pandemic has drawn attention to the importance of housing for low and no income residents. The most successful housing, for all its faults, has been social housing. New social housing has always been constrained by cost. Global warming brings new cost considerations to bear on social housing construction.
Against these concerns, however, is a reminder of the importance of creating communities, not just the rudiments of shelter, for tenants who are impoverished.
An archived story from 1973 in a Sydney, Australia newspaper provides an assessment of social housing by the anthropologist Margaret Mead. Some of her comments are important reminders of vital things — not always expensive — that can turn a human warehouse into a community. Read more in The Sydney Morning Herald: From the Archives, 1973: Dr Mead’s tour of social housing1
