Pandemic Wake-Up: The Privilege of Safe Spaces
By: Anna-Jane Tabler
Tags: Equity, Pandemic, City Living, Redevelopment, Covid 19

“No space can ever be 100 percent safe — but this is much more true for some groups of people than others.” -Alex Abad-Santos

It is essential for humans to have a space to release. For some, this release is found in religious buildings; for others, it is felt when immersed in a crowd of strangers at a packed concert. This space can be a person, a fleeting moment, or even a memory. Yet, despite the way the term “safe space” is often thrown around in different contexts, the core meaning remains the same: A place free of judgment. Permission to exist as you are. A space to shape your identity.

But not everyone has access to a safe space.

While the parameters that define safe spaces are loose, the barriers that block many oppressed groups and identities are difficult to traverse.

When COVID-19 first shut down the world, some safe spaces — like homes — were placed in jeopardy. For people who considered their home to be an escape, this confusing overlap of their once-separate lives created unsettling ambiguity.

The shift to life outside is ideal for most but exclusive to a few groups. Planned green spaces — both urban and rural — are defined and accessible based on the privilege that wealth and race provide. And now, the COVID-19 crisis highlights how years of patchy investment in neighborhoods have left 100 million Americans — including 27 million children — without access to an outdoor space close to home.

Consider the positioning of a well-funded neighborhood in your city and its proximity to a park. Consider the well-lit streets and clear sidewalks that lead up to it. And consider the people who play in it and pass through it.

With that in mind, it’s no secret that those with access to balconies, yards, parks, and other outdoor spaces — which allow for distanced activities — have fared well (before) and throughout the pandemic. With space to congregate and connect safely, these outdoor areas provide relief from a tense and isolated time.

“No one can live in a constant state of vigilance,” Sabrina Stevens says, “Your body is not designed to do that. The need for safe spaces is the need to literally not have your adrenal system constantly firing at full tilt.”

There are heavy ties between nature and mental health. Even a few minutes spent outside in silence has been proven to lower blood pressure and levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which calms the body’s fight-or-flight response.

In a time where health is at risk, the urgency for green spaces is essential for survival.

While affluent communities have carried on with their lives outside, individuals in low-income, disadvantaged areas have been forced to dually navigate a global pandemic and the subsequent mental health crisis from their (sometimes) tumultuous homes. Trapped inside their four walls without relief, some residents are physically isolated, while others suffer in silence despite being constantly surrounded by others.

Sheltering in place has forced these residents to remain isolated from the communities that shape their identities.

Photo by Sand Crain on Unsplash

And these conditions are only creating higher levels of stress inside, as time outside is limited, distanced, and diminishing with the onset of winter.

As this pandemic barrels on, governments have strategically attempted to reopen cities with redesigned outdoor spaces for socially-distanced activities. Parking lots have been transformed into streateries and streets have been shut down to create outdoor dining spaces. Bike and pedestrian-centric roads are emerging across the country as people safely shift the way they move across cities. City parks have welcomed people back into their communal grounds to meet and congregate safely. However, with winter approaching, colder temperatures and reclosures threaten this security once again.

While it is easy to brush off the claims that outdoor biases still exist, these treacherous realities are still pervasive in lower-income communities. And despite efforts to safely accommodate people during the pandemic, parks continue to give a cold shoulder to many BIPOC individuals who have faced years of racism and culturally-embedded discrimination in these outdoor areas.

“African Americans’ lack of interest in parks or outdoor recreation is a cultural disposition shaped by centuries of racial oppression,” — Kang Jae Lee, Professor at University of Missouri

Consider Christian Cooper, a bird-watcher from Central Park whose story went viral back in May 2020 when a white woman called the police over his request to leash her dog in a designated birding area. Stories like Christian’s are not outliers. They are normalized interactions for BIPOC individuals in “public spaces.”

Safety is a quick, public response when the conversation of discrimination and the outdoors is brought up. Outdated and incorrect, these stereotypes are based on historically racist tropes against Black and Brown communities — and this is especially prevalent in lower-income neighborhoods.

Parks can provide public, unsurveilled space and thus may become settings where social disorder and crime are more common. However, new research shows that organized community activities and investment in parks have deterred certain crimes from happening. This is just another example of the positive effects reinvestment has on previously-overlooked communities.

Sianna Simmons-Afari, Associate Director at Kaboom, put it best:

“Until Black people feel safe, welcome and included in a space, we cannot truthfully call it public.”

If the case for safe green spaces was not clear before, COVID-19 has justified the necessity. We were not created to spend our lives inside, and our pandemic experience indoors and outdoors is shaped by the privileges that we operate in. Advocating, building, and maintaining safe outdoor green spaces is a way to take back.

In order to move towards a more equitable future with public spaces, all voices of all backgrounds must have a seat at the table. No more forced “solutions” with boutique gyms and overpriced grocery stores. City planners must welcome and accommodate the requests and suggestions of the communities they seek to improve. All community stakeholders must have seats at the planning table in order to create solutions that are both purposeful and sustainable.

Interested in how I dealt with solitude in a pandemic? Check out my piece on finding community during COVID-19 here.