A regional approach to COVID-19 recovery: lessons from the West Midlands

Abstract

Recovery from a societal 'shock' should not mean returning to a pre-existing state. Whilst shocks - which range from acute and unexpected to chronic and anticipated - are disruptive, they also provide opportunities to create better societies, places and economies. The COVID-19 pandemic has cut through entrenched ways of living and working, resulting in some positive outcomes, including reduced air and noise pollution, increased active travel and falling carbon emissions (Leach et al., 2020). Many organisations have had to rethink how they operate, with expensive business premises downsized, creating new possibilities for how cities and towns are organised. At the same time, established ways of thinking about places are having to change. For example, car-free cities are predicated upon extensive use of public transport and dense, vibrant streetscapes - neither of which are feasible during a pandemic. Taking a place-based and participatory approach to recovery has the potential for progress beyond what existed before. Societies involve unique combinations of social, technical and institutional elements that work together in particular ways to create socio-technical systems. The systems evolve in response to endogenous drivers (such as the adoption of new technologies), new thinking emerging and behaviours changing. The systems are also affected by exogenous factors, such as COVID-19, that accelerate change: technological developments are incentivised;behaviour change is mandated. As such, all places are engaged in a continual process of recovering from different levels of shock (Deverteuil, 2016). Some changes may be temporary in their full embodiment, but even so they cause ripples that persist across the system, making it impossible to recover to 'what was', or to 'bounce back' (Matyas and Pelling, 2014). Elected representatives and policy makers have promoted the concept of a postpandemic 'recovery' (HM Government, 2020). The nuance, however, is in recognising the transient state of our societies. If there is talk of recovery it should not be in relation to a static point. Rather, 'recovery' should aim for an improved state that also provides better preparedness and a greater ability to respond to shocks. As such, a key focus of recovery should be on developing the tools needed to respond to future shocks.