Reflecting on City Governmental Responses to COVID-19: Focus on Design Justice

Abstract

In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant stay-at-home mandates, local governments in some cities in the United States implemented programs in response to the pandemic. This article focuses on Slow Streets, which were several programs implemented in eleven cities (Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Denver, Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit, Boston, and New York) in the United States. The programs were intended to keep people healthy by providing temporary public spaces on residential roads where residents were allowed to exercise and socialize. Some practitioners characterized the programs as tactical urbanism or tactical placemaking and as agile responses to the public health crisis. The programs deserve a critical reflection, considering their potential impact on community health and the limited amount of the literature on the program in terms of design justice, which is an approach to design that prioritizes marginalized communities and challenges their structural inequality. This reflective study attempts to fill that gap in the literature of architecture and urban design. This article aims to examine whether the Slow Streets programs promoted design justice. To address that aim, we propose a social justice framework to evaluate the program, because social justice is essential to design justice. Data from publicly available information online about the eleven cities’ Slow Streets programs, interviews, surveys, focus groups, and the interdisciplinary literature support the qualitative research. The study outcomes suggest that the Slow Streets program had limited success because their attention to the priorities of underserved populations was ineffective. We argue that while the programs provided a timely response to the pandemic, the programs did not adequately address the vulnerability of low-income communities of color due to the limited consideration of design justice. Building on the lessons from social justice and human geography, the article concludes with recommendations for future practices including place-cultivating and human geography-informed design to better serve vulnerable communities of color.

1. Introduction

1.1. Study Aim and Scope

In the face of a global pandemic, it is expected that local governments would play a pivotal role in strengthening the health of underserved communities of color because they are likely to be highly vulnerable in times of a public health crisis due to their longstanding disadvantages (e.g., lack of health equity) [1,2]. Several cities in the US did implement some programs in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in an effort to respond quickly to the pandemic. Because of the potential health impact of such programs on communities, it is important to investigate how effectively these programs assisted low-income residents of color. This study focuses on the Slow Streets program, as it is not only relevant to design but is also among the frequently mentioned programs during the pandemic in eleven cities, i.e., our study cities, including Los Angeles [3,4], Oakland [5], San Francisco [6,7], Portland [8], Seattle [9,10], Denver [11,12], Chicago [13,14], Minneapolis [15], Detroit [16], New York [17], and Boston [18]. These cities were chosen for the study because they provided information on their websites about their Slow Streets program or similar interventions. The purpose of the Slow Streets programs was to create a temporary public space by closing off through traffic on residential roads where residents would be allowed to exercise and socialize. While the cities may designate some Slow Streets on their own, a group of citizens or an organization could submit applications to the Slow Streets program offices for including additional local streets in the programs. The offices could then review the requests and make decisions [19]. As we note during the reviews of the cities’ websites, details for the programs’ processes and mechanisms of planning and implementation are difficult to find because the programs were temporary and the cities, in general, provide limited program contents or specifics and do not update the content in a routine, consistent, and systematic manner. Moreover, given the cities’ desires to deal expeditiously with the global health crisis, the programs’ planning and implementation processes appear to be neither overly time-consuming nor complex [20]. More information will be provided later.

This study aims to examine whether the Slow Streets programs were effective in addressing the need of underserved communities of color during the pandemic. We hypothesize that the programs were not effective because of their limited attention to design justice. To address the study aim and hypothesis, we propose a conceptual social justice framework to examine the programs, as social justice is essential to design justice. These concepts and other relevant key terms that define the study scope, focus areas, and final recommendations are introduced below in the Key Terms Section.

To further clarify the scope of this study, we underscore that examining each study city’s Slow Streets program in depth and conducting a comprehensive comparison of all the study cities are not the focus of this study, but rather, the true purpose is investigating key characteristics of the program overall based on information available online along with other support data, which is appropriate for the study because of the unique nature of the program mentioned earlier (i.e., the program is temporary, thereby lacking rigorously updated contents and specifics in many of the cities). Details on data collection are in the Methodology Section.

1.2. Key Terms

Tactical urbanism, as a key concept relevant to Slow Streets, is generally known as a design and planning practice focused on short-term improvements to the built environment. Usually found in cities, the improvements draw attention to perceived shortcomings in the physical environment through bottom-up, community engagement, and placemaking in an incremental fashion [21,22]. Placemaking, which is an important part of the broader tactical urbanism literature, is an area that this article is focused on, as it is more relevant to design justice. Placemaking is an approach to design and planning that focuses on creating vibrant and engaging public spaces within the built environment [23]. Placemaking involves transforming ordinary spaces into meaningful places that foster community interaction, enhance the quality of life, and reflect the local identity and culture [24]. We define tactical placemaking as a tactical design or planning intervention to make a place on a short-term basis with the aim of improving the physical environment through bottom-up or community-based process. Tactical placemaking is often used to create vibrant, people-centered public spaces that promote social interaction, community engagement, and a sense of place, often through a series of small, incremental interventions [25,26].

Design justice is defined as an approach to design that prioritizes marginalized communities and that aims explicitly to challenge structural inequality [27]. In order for design to address justice effectively in communities, we put more emphasis on the collaborative efforts of diverse built environment professionals—we prefer to call them “placemakers” (including architects, urban designers, planners, landscape architects, and community activists, as well as government officials involved in physical environment divisions, such as design and planning departments in a city).

Social justice is considered a grounding for design justice [28] and promotes relevance, equity, participatory engagement, and governance, which are essential to socially responsive placemaking [29]. Given our emphasis on a collaborative nature of design, we prefer to view design more as placemaking and focus on it, as it is more beneficial to the social justice that we promote in this article. Lastly, human geography studies spatial relationships between human communities, cultures, economies, and their interactions with the environment. This multidisciplinary approach analyzes spatial interdependencies between social interactions and the environment, contributing to a comprehensive understanding of the intricate connections that shape lived spaces [30,31]. These concepts inform our study and final recommendations to strengthen the Slow Streets program or other relevant practices for the future. More details about these terms are provided in relevant sections later.

1.3. Contexts for Slow Streets Program

When the lockdowns were imposed in many cities in early 2020, some cities responded quickly and implemented design and planning interventions. One of the common interventions was the Slow Streets program. Although various names for this type of intervention are used in different cities (e.g., Safe and Healthy Streets, Open Streets, Shared Streets, etc.), they all share similar purposes (e.g., promoting health) and physical features. The name Slow Streets is more commonly found. Slow Streets are intended to keep residents healthy during the pandemic by not allowing through traffic in residential streets in order for residents to exercise and socialize safely.

Considering the programs’ potential impact on the health of residents, a low-income population of color is a primary target group in our examination of the program. This is based on the rationale that the lower-income residents of color are more likely to be vulnerable than whiter and higher-income groups during the pandemic, especially taking into account the longstanding disparities (e.g., poverty) of the former [32]. Given our primary interest in underserved communities of color and considering the Slow Streets programs’ emphases on residential areas, racial and residential street characteristics of the study cities are useful to note and are summarized below.

A sizable segment of Black and Hispanic populations exists in each of the study cities. All our study cities rank among the highly populated areas (ranked between the first and the forty-sixth among 319 high-population cities) in the US. The study cities represent east, west, and Midwest regions of the US. A key trend is that a percentage of white, non-Hispanic residents who are below the federal poverty line (based on USD 12,760 in 2020 for a single person in the US) [33] is less than 10% in each of the study cities except Detroit and New York, and a percentage of Black or African American residents who are below the federal poverty line is twice as high as that of white residents in most of the study cities, and even nearly three times higher in several cities. A percentage of Hispanic or Latino residents is slightly lower than that of Black residents in all cities except San Francisco and Boston but far higher than that of white residents in all study cities (see

Table 1. Demographic data for study cities (focusing on population, race, and poverty rate).

(a)	(b)	(c)	(d)	(e)/(f)	(g)	(h)/(i)
2	Los Angeles	W	3,921,000	8.8/48.6	8.6	22.2/18.3
46	Oakland	W	419,000	20/27	8.5	20.4/18.5
17	San Francisco	W	808,000	5.1/15.2	7.1	10.3/12.2
19	Seattle	W	762,000	7.3/7.3	7.2	17.5/11.1
26	Portland	W	653,000	5.9/10.3	7.6	14.6/12.8
20	Denver	W	741,000	5.1/20.9	6.6	17.8/17.3
3	Chicago	M	2,696,000	28.8/29	9.8	22.8/18.9
27	Detroit	M	620,000	77.2/7	12.3	35.1/29.5
45	Minneapolis	M	439,000	18.9/10.4	7.4	23.1/19.2
21	Boston	E	689,000	22.5/19.6	8.5	20.4/21.2
1	New York	E	8,297,000	24.3/29.1	11.3	20.2/18.3

Note: All numbers are estimated for (d) through (i). Source for (a) and (d–f): WPR or World Population Review, 2020 [34]. Source for (g–i): ACS or American Community Survey, 2020. (a) Ranking of cities in terms of population size [out of approximately 319 cities in the US with populations exceeding 100,000 people. (b) The 11 study cities. (c) U.S. region: W = West Coast; E = East Coast; M: Midwest. (d) Population size of each city. (e) Population size by race: percentage of Black or African residents. (f) Population size by race: percentage of Hispanic or Latino residents. (g) Percentage of white, non-Hispanic residents living below the federal poverty line. (h) Percentage of Black or African American residents living below the federal poverty line. (i) Percentage of Hispanic or Latino residents living below the federal poverty line.

).

These data may not be surprising to many readers but they serve as a good reminder that in times of extraordinary situations such as a global pandemic, disadvantaged populations of color are likely to require an extra attention from their city governments.

While the study cities are located in different regions in the US, Slow Streets in these cities are more likely to be implemented in their dense urban residential areas, where frequent foot traffic existed prior to the pandemic. These cities seem to have similar layout patterns in residential streets due partly to a frequent presence of grid layouts.

Likewise, Slow Streets in the study cities tended to have a similar street cross-sections (i.e., one side of the street consisting of houses, front yards, sidewalks, street tree zones, and roadways for cars, with the same pattern being repeated on the other side of the same street) as well, although some regional variations do exist in each city due to local geography or regulations (e.g., existing zoning laws).

Moreover, Slow Streets in the study cities tended to have a similar appearance primarily because they used universally recognizable materials, equipment, or tools such as barricades, traffic cones, yellow barrels, posters, signs, planters, etc., and secondarily because the programs were usually located on urban residential streets that resembled the abovementioned street cross-section and street patterns (see Figure 1, Figure 2 and Figure 3).

Additional but related similarities among the study cities include simplicity in terms of the scope of planning work involved for the programs (e.g., primarily making or canceling Slow Streets) and the flexibility of materials for implementation (e.g., use of materials that allow for an easy or fast installation, transportation, or removal). Both attributes (along with other factors, including governmental pressure to act quickly) might have contributed to the program designers’ use of less complicated planning maps for the programs; these maps for the study cities tend to be similar and simplified in terms of content and presentation style (see Figure 4, Figure 5 and Figure 6).

When one considers these similarities (e.g., physical features of Slow Streets) among the study cities, it appears that regardless of their various locations (e.g., belonging to different regions in the US), the programs tended to be implemented or functioned in a similar manner. We further explore these similarities in the Reflective Analysis and Results Section later.

1.4. Study Approach and Organization

Considering the ethical, health, and physical challenges of conducting research during the pandemic and the Slow Streets programs’ being temporary initiatives, a comprehensive evaluation of the program or comparative analysis of the programs in all study cities would be difficult. However, based on publicly accessible data, along with data from interviews, surveys, and focus groups we conducted during the pandemic, and taking them together in triangulation, it is possible to reflect on how the programs went, learn from those experiences for the next time, and address the study aim mentioned above.

We use the following three questions to guide our reflective study and examine the program: (1) Is a Slow Streets program the right intervention in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic? (2) Is the program implemented appropriately? (3) Is the program effective?

To address those questions, we use two conceptual frameworks based on social justice and human geography perspectives. The social justice perspective as a primary framework serves to examine the extent to which the Slow Streets programs promoted equitable, socially responsive, and inclusive placemaking within a city. The human geography perspective as a complementary framework serves to consider the extent to which human geography can be applied to the Slow Streets programs so as to promote people-centered placemaking, thereby improving the program for the future. The social justice framework is particularly relevant to underserved communities of color, which are the main groups that we are concerned about in this article.

To answer the three guiding questions, we use publicly available data found on the websites of Slow Streets programs in the study cities. While these cities have not always maintained and updated their websites rigorously, thereby omitting some details on the programs, information gathered from the study cities’ websites in aggregate is sufficient enough for us to address the three questions. Moreover, outcomes of our own interviews, surveys, and focus groups supplement the data collected from the study cities’ websites. Conceptual frameworks for social justice and human geography are grounded in lessons learned from the interdisciplinary literature.

The Literature Review Section investigates key attributes of the Slow Streets program, tactical urbanism, social justice, and relationships among them, as pertaining to the study aim. More specifically, the first part of the section identifies a few notable characteristics of the Slow Streets programs that are more relevant to this article’s aim. We are particularly interested in the programs’ tactical nature, their rationale, and the way they are implemented. In the second part, to further our understanding of tactical placemaking aspects of the programs, we review the literature on tactical urbanism with more respect to temporality and placemaking and the relationship between the Slow Streets programs and tactical placemaking. In the third and last part of the section, we conceptualize a social justice framework to incorporate lessons and takeaways from the literature review, e.g., potential limitations of the Slow Streets program and tactical placemaking and social justice as a foundation to promote design justice in a city government’s tactical placemaking.

Although placemaking is taught widely in architecture schools, various fields offer useful perspectives on placemaking. Building on the interdisciplinary literature on architecture, urban design, social justice, community development, and human geography, we conceptualize the social justice framework to address the three questions mentioned above.

In the Methodology Section, we explain quantitative and qualitative studies we conducted, their relationships, data collection and use, and the rational for research design and analysis.

In the Reflective Analysis and Results Section, we present quantitative analysis outcomes and qualitative research outcomes, in that order, and discuss how both outcomes complement each other.

In the Discussion and Conclusions Sections, informed by the outcomes of examination of the Slow Streets program, we determine that although the program is a timely tactical placemaking response to the pandemic to achieve the broader public good, that strength alone is not sufficient to characterize the program as an effective design justice-based intervention due to the program’s limitations in advancing social justice. We further discuss the implications of our study outcomes and lessons learned and make recommendations for local governments. Particularly, we advocate for a placemaking practice that is grounded on place-cultivating and people-centered practice informed by human geography perspectives, and we regard such practice as a more effective approach to implementing the Slow Streets programs or similar tactical programs in the future in an equitable, just, and human-centered manner, i.e., an approach that is grounded on design justice necessary to address the vulnerability of underserved communities of color.

2. Literature Review

This section reports on the results of the reviews of the interdisciplinary literature on Slow Streets, tactical placemaking and urbanism, social justice, and design justice. We seek to understand key ideas or attributes of each of those concepts central to our study and the relationships among them. Through that intersectional understanding, it is possible to ascertain potential benefits and liabilities of the Slow Streets program and tactical urbanism. Afterwards, by building on the takeaways from the literature reviews, we conceptualize a social justice framework, which we use later to address the aforementioned three guiding questions, thereby assessing the Slow Streets program.

2.1. Key Attributes of Slow Streets

As a reminder, the focus of this article is neither to analyze each study city’s Slow Streets program nor to compare all study cities’ programs in a comprehensive manner; rather, the study seeks to understand emerging patterns or trends that run through the study cities with respect to the planning, development, implementation, and effectiveness of the programs based on the information available online, supplemental data, and the social justice framework. Below, we first delve into key common characteristics of the programs in the study cities.

Despite geographical differences, many similarities do exist among the programs in those cities. Some of the more important commonalities are highlighted below for the purpose of our study.

First, the most notable common characteristic is the use of temporary structures to close off through traffic in residential areas and create temporary public spaces on the roads which are normally primarily for cars.

The temporary measures include various shapes of barricades, poster signs, and planters designed by artists, architects, urban designers, or planners [36]. The provisional public space created by these features is intended to allow residents to walk, bike, roller-skate, socialize, play games, or dine out not far from their homes [37].

Second, the study cities launched the Slow Streets programs in spring of 2020. After two years or so, however, many of the Slow Streets programs had been canceled, become more permanent, or absorbed into other existing or new programs (e.g., bike plans, green infrastructure plans, master plans) in the cities [38].

Third, taken together, based on the review of the official websites of the study cities with respect to the Slow Streets programs, several common themes are notable, namely the low cost, quick response (e.g., implementation of the program in an early phase of the pandemic), temporality (short-term measures), top-down intervention (led by the local planning units in most of the cities), and flexibility (a street closing plan easily modified, responding quickly to fluid situations on the ground).

Some of these characteristics are similar to those of tactical placemaking or tactical urbanism in the literature. Below, we discuss those attributes. We seek to understand the nature of the connection between tactical placemaking and the Slow Streets program and discuss the differences and similarities between the two and key takeaways from the comparison.

2.2. Tactical Placemaking

There is a broad scope of the literature on tactical urbanism. In this section, we focus more on placemaking aspects of tactical urbanism, as placemaking is more appropriate to our study’s aim and scope with respect to design justice.

Tactical placemaking refers to a range of low-cost, temporary, and often grassroots interventions that aim to improve the functionality and livability of public spaces [39]. Tactical placemaking is an approach to architectural and urban design practice that emphasizes the use of temporary interventions to improve public spaces and create more livable, walkable, and sustainable communities [40,41,42]. Among the many attributes of tactical placemaking, several of them stand out frequently in the literature.

Incrementalism, low cost, and temporality are notable intersecting aspects of tactical placemaking projects, which are often small-scale and incremental, focusing on making small improvements that can have a significant impact on the community, i.e., small incremental changes to public spaces that can be scaled up over time to create larger, more permanent transformations [43,44]. Low cost and temporality are common features of tactical placemaking projects, as they are often low-budget and use readily available materials, allowing them to be implemented quickly and easily [45]. Many tactical placemaking projects are designed to be temporary, using simple materials and techniques to create quick and inexpensive improvements to urban spaces. Such temporary and low-cost projects allow for the experimentation and testing of ideas before committing to more permanent solutions [39].

Flexibility and adaptability are interrelated and exhibited in tactical placemaking projects. As these projects tend to be flexible and adaptable, they are easily modified in response to changing needs and conditions in the community, and they even allow for experimentation and innovation in the use of public spaces [46,47].

A bottom-up approach, community engagement, and collaboration are important and interrelated attributes of tactical placemaking, as it often involves grassroots, community-driven initiatives that prioritize the needs and desires of local residents over top-down approaches [48]. Tactical placemaking projects are designed to engage the community in the design and planning process, giving residents a sense of ownership and pride in their neighborhoods [49,50,51]. Moreover, tactical placemaking involves collaboration among community groups, designers, planners, and other stakeholders [52]. These groups work together to identify and address issues in their neighborhoods. Similarly, tactical placemaking projects often promote multidisciplinary collaboration, involving cooperation among a range of actors, including architects, urban designers, landscape architects, community organizers, artists, and other creative professionals.

Overall, tactical placemaking represents a nimble, adaptable approach to the design and planning of built environment that prioritizes community engagement, experimentation, and innovation in the pursuit of more livable, sustainable, and equitable communities.

The Slow Streets program exhibits some aspects of tactical placemaking. However, understanding to what extent the nature of the program is attributed to tactical placemaking is important to our article. Therefore, we will address it in the Reflective Analysis and Results Section later. The analysis will be based on social justice given our focus on underserved communities, as noted previously. The discussion below introduces our proposed social justice framework, informed by the interdisciplinary literature.

2.3. Social Justice

In the interdisciplinary literature, a number of partially overlapping concepts establish essential relationships between social justice and design justice. Through those relationships, we argue that social justice plays an essential role in advancing design justice.

Social justice is central to promoting design justice, especially when designing healthy, inclusive, and equitable communities for underserved populations of color. Design justice aims to center the voices, needs, and experiences of marginalized communities in design processes, addressing the structural inequalities that have historically excluded these groups from decision-making. Among many conceptualizations of the relationships between social justice and design justice found in the literature, several of them pertain to our study’s aim and explain why social justice is crucial in this context.

2.3.1. Relationship to Address Historical Inequities

Communities of color have often faced systemic discrimination in areas like urban planning, housing, and public spaces. Redlining, disinvestment, and lack of access to resources have led to concentrated poverty and health disparities [53]. Social justice in design recognizes these historical inequities and seeks to rectify them. Design justice challenges the power dynamics in which designers, architects, and planners may impose solutions without genuinely involving the communities they serve [54]. It ensures that those most impacted have a meaningful say in shaping their environments, helping to counteract past injustices.

2.3.2. Relationship to Ensure Community Voice and Participation

Social justice prioritizes participatory design processes, where community members are active participants rather than passive recipients of design solutions [55]. This means listening to the specific needs and aspirations of underserved populations and including their input in every step of the design process. For example, designing a public park or a community health center in a predominantly Black or Latino neighborhood should involve local residents in decisions about location, amenities, and programming. This ensures that the outcomes align with the community’s cultural values and everyday realities.

2.3.3. Relationship to Promote Equity in Health and Well-Being

Social justice is essential for designing spaces that promote health and well-being [56]. Communities of color often face higher rates of chronic diseases and environmental hazards due to systemic inequalities [57]. Design justice focuses on creating environments that promote health equity, like access to green spaces, healthy food options, clean air, and safe, walkable neighborhoods. For instance, designing housing that is free from environmental toxins, has access to quality healthcare services, and is connected to public transportation directly addresses the structural barriers that disproportionately impact communities of color [58,59,60].

2.3.4. Relationship to Build Resilience and Empowerment

Social justice-oriented design fosters resilience by creating spaces that strengthen social ties and community networks [61]. This is particularly important for communities of color, who may rely on these networks for mutual support in the face of economic or social challenges. Design justice helps build community power by elevating local expertise and creating opportunities for leadership within the design process [27]. This empowers residents, helping them to advocate for their needs and sustain improvements over time.

2.3.5. Relationship to Promote Cultural Relevance and Inclusivity

Social justice ensures that design processes and outcomes reflect the cultural contexts of the communities they serve [27]. It moves away from one-size-fits-all approaches and acknowledges the rich cultural heritage and specific needs of communities of color. This could mean incorporating elements of cultural significance into public spaces, creating multilingual signage, or ensuring that spaces are designed to accommodate diverse traditions and practices. Such culturally responsive design fosters a sense of belonging and respect, crucial for inclusivity [62].

2.3.6. Relationship to Redistribute Power and Resources

Design justice, rooted in social justice, is about redistributing power and resources [63]. It challenges the idea that expertise only lies with formal designers or planners, instead recognizing the lived experiences of marginalized communities as vital to creating effective solutions. This might involve shifting resources to support community-led initiatives or working alongside local organizations to design solutions that reflect the community’s priorities, thereby creating long-term impact [64].

In summary, social justice is integral to design justice because it ensures that the design of spaces and communities is not only functional but also fair and responsive to the needs of those who have been historically marginalized. By prioritizing equity, participation, and cultural relevance, design justice creates healthier, more inclusive communities where all members, regardless of race or background, have the opportunity to thrive.

Several themes that run through these six partially overlapping relationships between social justice and design justice include equity (e.g., providing equitable access to essential places), participation (e.g., promoting robust community engagement), relevance (e.g., respecting local expertise and culture), and governance (e.g., power sharing). These common themes ground our proposed conceptualization of a social justice framework, as we delve into it below.

For our emphasis on design justice with respect to underserved communities, we define social justice more in the realm of community design or the design of public places in the neighborhood environment.

Social justice in that context refers to the equitable distribution of power, resources, opportunities, and privileges among all residents, regardless of their socio-economic status, race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or any other aspect of their identity [60,65]. The goal of social justice is to ensure that every individual has equal access to quality information, education, healthcare, housing, employment, and other basic necessities, as well as a voice in shaping the future of their communities [66].

The implementation of social justice principles in the design of neighborhood environments requires addressing systemic barriers and biases that have historically disadvantaged certain groups [67,68]. This can include policies and programs aimed at affordable housing, reducing income inequality, promoting diversity and inclusiveness, improving access to public transportation and essential services, and increasing the representation and participation of marginalized communities in decision-making processes.

Ultimately, social justice in placemaking is about creating a more equitable and just society where everyone has the opportunity to thrive and reach their full potential.

Clearly, the scope or the realm of social justice informed by the interdisciplinary literature suggested above is quite broad. Some aspects of the social justice dimension are more useful than others to our study.

Based on the literature, we focus on several elements of social justice, as they are more relevant to vulnerable populations of color during the pandemic.

The pertinent literature defines elements of social justice in various ways. Constructing a clear-cut list of key values or elements of social justice is difficult, but several common themes in the literature, as mentioned earlier, suggest that an effective approach to promoting social justice for underserved communities should consider at least four elements, which we explain below.

All four elements must be fulfilled in order to promote social justice and address structural disadvantages of underserved people in communities.

Relevance indicates the appropriateness of an intervention or an initiative (e.g., placemaking project, program, development) for a given community. The intervention should be made relevant to local communities. This means that an initiative should be grounded in unique local contexts and that local actors should be involved in a significant way in creating the initiative [69].

Equity is central to an effective intervention and the concept of access plays a key role in assessing equity [70]. In this context, design or placemaking efforts must prioritize a greater equality of access to various types of services and amenities in communities, including essential places such as hospitals, schools, grocery stores, and parks; opportunities for minority business development; and land use policies that expand and improve access to goods and services in resource-poor neighborhoods. Equity also benefits from technical assistance and outreach efforts that increase equality in access to land use resources and economic development tools.

Participatory engagement is essential to an effective placemaking process. Participatory engagement is required if intervention actors are to expand opportunities for participation in decision-making by minority and under-represented groups [71,72,73].

Governance must be expected to shepherd an intervention across a community or a city in a democratic manner. We consider respect for “inclusion” and “rights” essential to achieving an effective governing process. A governing mechanism needs to be inclusive, and its participants need to engage in outreach that targets minorities and under-represented groups in community meetings, on design and planning or governing boards, and in making key decisions [74,75,76,77]. Regarding rights, effective governance must require participants to conduct all work and engage in all interactions in accordance with the legal, social, and political rights of the communities served.

An intervention or placemaking that advances these four social justice values or elements—relevance, equity, participatory engagement, and effective governance—can be effective in improving the emotional, social, and physical well-being of individuals. These values, if realized systematically and collaboratively community-wide or citywide by key actors, can open pathways through which to promote community health and well-being [78,79].

Building on the lessons learned from the literature, it is reasonable to assume that design that advances those four elements or values of social justice is more likely to be considered a practice that advocates for design justice than other types of practices that do not promote those four elements.

With that assumption in mind, we will use these four elements to examine whether the Slow Streets program is made relevant to underserved communities of color (relevance); whether the program promotes equitable and safe access to essential places (equity); whether the program encourages the residents to actively participate in the process (participatory engagement); and whether the residents of the study neighborhoods play a key role in developing the program (governance); and we will report the outcomes of the assessment of the program in the Reflective Analysis and Results Section.

In this section, we learned that the Slow Streets program appears to resemble tactical placemaking as a temporary, agile, and incremental response to the global pandemic. However, the top-down, “imposed”, or “directed” nature of the program does not appear to align well with other key attributes (e.g., bottom-up, community-based, collaborative) of tactical placemaking that are considered more desirable and beneficial to social justice in the literature. Both aspects taken together, as we hypothesize, suggest that while the program is designed to respond quickly to the pandemic, it is limited in promoting social justice, thereby falling short of advancing design justice in underserved communities of color.

To address that hypothesis, we previously proposed the three following questions to guide our research: (1) Is the Slow Streets program the right intervention in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic? (2) Is the program implemented appropriately? (3) Is the program effective? Although the consideration of all four elements of social justice is necessary to address each of the three questions, the first question pertains more to relevance and responses to the second and the third questions require the consideration of all four elements. These three questions will lay the ground for the social justice-based analysis of the program in the Reflective Analysis and Results Section.

But first, the next section on Methodology explains how the conceptual social justice framework is applied in the assessment of the Slow Streets program; how quantitative and qualitative studies are conducted, used, and related to each other; and what and how data are collected, used, and analyzed.

3. Methodology

The primary data sources for this article are the Slow Streets websites of the eleven cities. However, considering the aforementioned limitations of the city data (i.e., lack of details and updated contents about the programs on city websites), data collected from small sample-based interviews, surveys, and focus groups, as well as the information gained from the literature reviews that the first author conducted, supplement the city data. Taken together, this combined research strategy is to support the qualitative research for this study and increase its credibility through data triangulation [80,81].

Sixteen people (11 Slow Streets program planners or designers, with one for each study city and five residents in Oakland, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, and New York) participated in the interviews via phone, texting, and email in 2021. Fourteen graduate architecture students in the Detroit metropolitan region participated in the rating surveys and follow-up focus group. More information is under the quantitative research segment below. The participants’ demographic information is not presented, as it is based on a small sample with no effect on the study outcomes.

The information gathered from these various sources is used to address the three guiding questions mentioned earlier.

The next section on the analysis and results reports on qualitative analysis outcomes as primary evidentiary materials and introduces quantitative analysis outcomes as supplemental evidence. These two different sets of data are presented in a mutually reinforcing manner, while the qualitative research outcomes tend to support or elaborate the results of the quantitative research.

The qualitative analysis is based on the examination of the information on the Slow Streets websites and the interview outcomes. Selected interview quotes and city data are used to highlight emerging themes or patterns in the outcomes of assessment of the Slow Streets program.

The quantitative analysis is based on the outcomes of rating surveys and post-survey focus groups and follows the process and rationale laid out below.

Between 2022 and 2023, 14 graduate students in a local architecture school near Detroit where the first author teaches participated in a (rating) survey session (not part of class for credits) as volunteers to rate the Slow Streets programs in ten cities (Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Denver, Chicago, Minneapolis, New York, and Boston) in terms of relevance, equity, governance, and participatory engagement (four values or elements of social justice, as discussed earlier). Detroit, which is on the original list of study cities, is replaced with Seattle to avoid potential biases associated with the proximity of students’ homes to Detroit and their extensive familiarity with Detroit. Students are chosen for rating due to (a) difficulty finding enough resident participants in the study cities during the pandemic and (b) an advantage enjoyed by architecture students over local residents, which is their ability to conduct a more objective and balanced rating of the programs in the ten cities.

Specifically, the rating survey follows the steps below.

First, the author holds an information session where students learn about the ten cities’ Slow Streets programs, the four values of social justice, and how to rate the ten cities’ programs in terms of social justice and provides students with access to relevant information (e.g., Slow Streets program websites and other sources on the programs, social justice, and tactical urbanism).

Second, students are asked to rate the Slow Streets programs of the ten cities individually using a 5-point Likert scale (5 being strongly agree; 4: agree; 3: neutral; 2: disagree; 1: strongly disagree) and the operationalization of social justice, as described below.

Relevance: the Slow Streets program is the right and appropriate intervention for the local contexts (e.g., local priorities and social and historical background) of low-income communities of color.

Equity: the Slow Streets program promotes equity in low-income communities of color.

Governance: the Slow Streets program encourages or allows residents in low-income communities of color to make key decisions in the program’s planning, development, and implementation processes.

Participatory engagement: the Slow Streets program promotes robust community engagement, which provides opportunities for inclusive, diverse, and democratic discourse in low-income communities of color.

The final step is to conduct a focus group with all student raters to follow-up on the results of their anonymous ratings of the study cities. The focus group provides opportunities for the students to further clarify or elaborate on their ratings and for the author to ask them questions (e.g., any difficulties associated with ratings, etc.). The focus group also serves to cross-check the rating outcomes.

In the following Reflective Analysis and Results Section, the outcomes of the quantitative research analysis via social justice ratings are presented first. Afterwards, the outcomes of the qualitative research are presented. We consider this sequencing of presentation to be more appropriate, as some of the key qualitative research results tend to reinforce or further clarify the outcomes of quantitative research.

4. Reflective Analysis and Results

4.1. Rating of Slow Streets Programs in Terms of Social Justice

As discussed earlier, this study is intended to investigate whether design justice plays a key role in the Slow Streets program. Therefore, building on the lessons learned from the literature reviews earlier that social justice is essential to design justice, we focus on assessing how well the program promotes social justice in low-income communities of color in the study cities.

After calculating an average score of each city in terms of social justice rating, we note several key trends cutting across the ten cities and provide a few highlights below.

First, overall, the Slow Streets programs in the ten cities tend to receive higher scores on relevance than on equity, governance, and participatory engagement. During the post-rating focus group, participants generally agreed that the program was timely and the types of materials (e.g., temporary and flexible structures and installations, etc.) and locations (e.g., residential streets) seem appropriate, considering the urgency of the situation (i.e., the global pandemic necessitating an immediate response) and the proximity of the program to residents’ homes for easy access. Several participants, however, stated that they gave relevance low marks (e.g., 1 or 2) for all or many of the cities because they argue that the program overall does not appear to address the most relevant or high-priority needs of low-income communities of color during the pandemic.

A participant commented the following:

It seems that the programs in the ten cities did not accurately assess what underserved people of color need the most and what their priorities are during the COVID-19 pandemic such as safe and easy access to virus testing centers, food pantries, and the like.

This might be the reason why the gap between the score of relevance and those of the other three values is not that large, even though relevance receives the highest score.

Second, the scores of all cities on equity are lower than those of the other elements. This is also reflected in the outcomes of the post-rating focus group session. Most of the session participants felt that the Slow Streets programs in the ten cities did not address equity adequately but acknowledged that Oakland’s Essential Place program (Oakland’s revised version of the Slow Streets program) is a good model of a city’s effort to promote equity in underserved communities in the face of a global health crisis impacting an entire city.

A focus group participant stated the following:

After reviewing all ten cities’ materials, I didn’t get a sense that they prioritize equity in disadvantaged communities of color. However, I found Oakland’s Essential Place program quite unique, as it is the only program that is designed to provide vulnerable people with easy and safe access to essential places like hospitals, groceries, etc., during the pandemic.

Third, the rating of governance in the ten cities appears to be as low as that of equity, while a rating of participatory engagement is higher than that of governance. It is useful to analyze and interpret the outcomes of governance and participatory engagement ratings together, as both elements are mutually reinforcing. While participatory engagement focuses more on participation itself (e.g., it is important for residents to participate in community affairs), governance puts more emphasis on whether a participating resident actually plays a role in the governing process (e.g., it is important for a resident to play a role in the decision-making process). A rating trend between the two elements suggests that although the Slow Streets programs in the ten cities conduct some community engagement (mostly online surveys), it is not quite robust because residents are not encouraged or allowed to make decisions about the planning, development, and implementation of the program.

A focus group member shared the following:

I can understand that the cities conduct mainly online surveys because they are faster and safer during the pandemic. However, they should explore or provide other more diverse, inclusive, or personalized engagement opportunities out of consideration for disadvantaged people including essential workers [like delivery drivers, workers at grocery stores, warehouses, or healthcare facilities] who are more likely to be part of a lower-income group and less likely to be allowed to work from home. The cities should engage or empower under-resourced or underrepresented people to play a role in decision making on the matters that affect their livelihood such as the pandemic.

Although the rating has some limitations—the sample size of the rating survey is small, students are not professional raters, and the differences between the ten cities and between the four elements of social justice may not be statistically significant—the descriptive statistics and the focus group data taken together make a reasonable case for the three overall trends that are observable in the rating datasets (see

Table 2. Social justice rating scores for ten cities.

	Relevance	Equity	Governance	Participatory Engagement
Los Angeles	3.8	3.2	3.5	3.6
Oakland	4.2	4	4.1	4.2
San Francisco	4	3.3	3.6	3.8
Seattle	3.7	3.1	3.1	3.3
Portland	3.9	3.1	3.2	3.5
Denver	3.7	2.8	2.8	3.2
Chicago	3.6	2.7	2.9	3.4
Minneapolis	3.7	2.7	2.7	3.1
Boston	3.9	3.2	3.4	3.6
New York	3.4	2.6	2.5	3.1
All Cities	3.79	3.07	3.18	3.48

Notes: All numbers are mean scores.

).

These trends, in general, tend to continue in the outcomes of the qualitative examination of the program as we address the three guiding questions mentioned earlier. The following sections report on the qualitative responses to those questions through using information from selected cities and interview quotes to highlight emerging themes or trends.

4.2. Is the Slow Streets Program the Right Initiative in the Face of the COVID-19 Pandemic?

This question is worth asking because we wondered whether there were any competing alternatives or why the Slow Streets program ended up being chosen.

When a city is hit by a worldwide pandemic, what should the local government’s built-environment professionals (including architects, urban designers, planners) do? How are they supposed to respond to such a historic health crisis? These and other related inquiries inspired us to eventually ask this question titled above.

As we ask those questions, we assume that local government’s built-environment professionals (local officials, in short) considered many possible responses. Thus, we wondered why the Slow Streets approach was chosen to be implemented rapidly in the eleven cities.

We hypothesized that the following factors played a role in an aggregate manner:

First, the program was quickly implementable by the local officials because the equipment, including barricades, canopies, signage, and other temporary structures, is easily made or available [38]. The Slow Streets program is a low-cost intervention due to the use of pre-existing materials and has an easy design and deployment with relatively minimal manpower and low-skill labor [36,82,83,84,85,86].

Second, the fact that the program is temporary and that its equipment can easily be removed (or relocated or redesigned) when the situation improves were factors that may have worked to the advantage of Slow Streets program adoption. Being able to offer the program on a temporary basis and the ability to remove or relocate the equipment easily makes it easy to implement the program quickly. This flexibility might have been viewed as an important advantage, especially in addressing the public health emergencies nimbly. A Minneapolis official interview participant stated that “providing temporary public space is important to allowing residents to safely exercise and socialize in their own communities, contributing to their health and well-being.”.

Third, from a public-relations standpoint, providing residents with temporary public spaces so that they could exercise and socialize safely during lockdown seems appealing. Some of the cities, including Portland, reported on their websites that the program was initially well received by citizens in that regard.

These aspects of the program are similar to some of the key characteristics of tactical placemaking or tactical urbanism including flexibility, adaptability, low cost, and incrementalism. An planner interview participant in Oakland asserted that their Slow Streets program is a type of tactical urbanism because the local governments intend to modify the existing streets to provide temporary public spaces quickly in response to urgent health threats to the public [5,87].

However, some of the other common features (e.g., bottom-up, community-based, collaborative) of tactical placemaking seem to be missing from the Slow Streets program.

Arguably, the most notable difference between a Slow Streets program and tactical placemaking is that unlike many tactical placemaking projects in the literature, a Slow Streets program is top-down, mainly because it is led, most often, by local government units.

The rapid spread of the virus and its impact on broader public health might have justified the top-down intervention of the program in order to expedite the implementation process and to control it. We have seen similar cases from history, especially with previous pandemics or epidemics [88].

Furthermore, comprehensive community engagement (e.g., more diverse, inclusive, equitable, personalized engagements) was neglected in the Slow Streets program, at least initially, according to some of the interview respondents and websites of some of the cities. In contrast, the literature on tactical placemaking reports on plenty of examples where robust engagement plays an important role [49,50].

Overall, the Slow Streets programs appear to be timely interventions, and their aims fit well with the local governments’ narrative of advocating for public health in the face of a pandemic.

Considering those factors, the use of tactical placemaking in Slow Streets programs seems appropriate, even though some important elements of tactical placemaking have not been fully utilized in the program. Taken together, the program appears to be an appropriate intervention under the circumstances. However, whether the program has been implemented properly or not is a different issue and an important one that deserves clarification. We will explore that issue in the next segment.

4.3. Are the Slow Streets Programs Implemented Appropriately?

We ask the question above with a particular emphasis on the underserved communities in the cities where Slow Streets programs were implemented.

Thus, we argue that the appropriateness of the way the Slow Streets program is implemented should be examined in the context in which the underserved communities are situated, i.e., the physical, social, and economic contexts of their communities.

From the recent studies on the impact of the pandemic on disadvantaged populations, low-income residents of color were more likely to contract the COVID-19 virus and die from it than more affluent white people, due partly to various disadvantages in the former group [89].

Such disparities are the results of a longstanding situation of social injustice and inequality, which persist in the way the built environment is constructed in underserved communities [32].

We use the previously mentioned four-element social justice framework to address the question of the appropriateness of the program implementation.

With respect to relevance, while some of the study cities publish the Slow Streets program/location maps in their websites, it is, however, difficult to find clear evidence logically differentiating the programs according to the physical and location-related characteristics of different communities in terms of demographics and social and economic data. In other words, the Slow Streets programs tended to be unilaterally implemented regardless of whether a target location is a more affluent community or a less affluent community, which has fewer essential places (e.g., parks, COVID-19 testing centers, grocery stores).

A program director interview participant in Oakland reported the following:

We have had varying degrees of success by geography. Early in the pandemic, a number of Slow Streets were wildly successful for people to socially distance and recreate in their neighborhoods. We also received pushback in some neighborhoods where Slow Streets were seen as a needless complication on top of all the challenges created by the pandemic. This split occurred largely along lines of class and race. More affluent and whiter neighborhoods with more telecommuting, dog walking, and jogging embraced Slow Streets. In less affluent neighborhoods with more people of color—many of whom continued to go to work—we saw different results. People complained about the added challenges driving into and out of their neighborhoods, and people who were on their feet all day at the warehouse or hospital did not find a recreational benefit in Slow Streets.

Despite the low-income communities’ initial complaints about the program, there were limited indications that the cities we studied modified the programs significantly to make them more relevant or more responsive to the needs of vulnerable communities of color, except in Oakland [90].

As we turn to equity, the readers are reminded that the concept of equity centers on equitable and equal access to essential services and amenities. In the face of the worldwide pandemic, supporting vulnerable communities would be among the top priorities for public officials. It is important for policymakers to ensure that underserved communities have access to essential services or places, such as food banks, medical care facilities, groceries, public transportation, parks, and other public spaces that are accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities and other vulnerable groups.

Considering the public officials’ interest in advancing the public good, providing underserved populations with easy and safe access to essential places would be an important public service.

The Oakland Slow Streets program unit reported that after listening to many complaints from residents when the Slow Streets program was rolled out, the planners modified key aspects of the program and created the Essential Place program, which intended to make it easier for residents to access essential places. The Essential Place program has been received well by residents as a program that actually met their real needs during the pandemic [91,92].

We now turn to participatory engagement. Websites of the cities in this study suggest that some level of community engagement was conducted. Due to safety concerns, engagement was often administered through surveys or interviews conducted via phone, email, or social media in the beginning of the pandemic. Later, focus groups or other limited in-person engagements took place.

Some cities (e.g., New York, Minneapolis) reported online that they consulted local business owners, residents, and organizations when deciding the inclusion (or cancelation) of streets for the program. However, no specific evidence is provided by the cities to clarify what types of community engagement were used and how engagement was actually executed.

Information gleaned from the websites of the cities including Oakland and Portland indicate that a series of community engagements were conducted. Yet, other cities have not posted online the details of community engagement. As such, there are varying degrees of community engagement among the cities we surveyed.

A question worth asking here is whether the residents who participated in community engagement above were allowed to make key decisions concerning the program, i.e., governance. We explore this below.

Governance refers to the extent to which residents have a representation in a key decision-making body.

The program websites of most of the cities we studied suggest that they worked with local communities regarding the Slow Streets program. However, it is difficult to find clear evidence in supporting that community representation is put in place in a governing system of the program. There is no evidence to suggest that community representatives or key actors from the community played a key role in conceiving the Slow Streets program and deciding the locations.

A resident interview participant commented the following:

While the city [New York] reported frequently on their website concerning removal or addition of streets to the program according to the requests the city receives from the public, there is no governing mechanism through which residents participate in a key decision-making process.

Even though some level of community engagement was implemented in many of the study cities, it is not clear how much power the residents had over any key decisions on the development of the program. It is one thing for residents to be mainly “informed” or “consulted” and it is another thing for them to be allowed to make key decisions. We try to address that distinction in our final question below by focusing on negative outcomes of lack of meaningful governance.

4.4. Are the Slow Streets Programs Effective?

Considering the programs’ temporary nature and the challenge of conducting long-term on-site research in the middle of the pandemic, conducting a comprehensive assessment of the program may continue to be difficult, but based on our literature reviews and interviews with some of the program planners and residents in the study cities, it is possible to observe several partially overlapping themes when addressing the question above.

Because the Slow Streets programs involve temporarily closing streets to vehicular traffic to create more space for pedestrians and cyclists to enjoy exercise, socializing, or recreation, the program has the potential to have both positive and negative impacts on underserved communities of color.

Informed by the literature findings, some of which seem to be corroborated by the interview results earlier, we highlight several potential negative impacts or limitations below.

First, Slow Streets may limit access to essential services such as grocery stores, medical facilities, and public transportation for residents in underserved communities of color who rely on these services [38,93].

Second, there is a risk that Slow Streets may not always be distributed equally across neighborhoods and may prioritize wealthier or predominantly white neighborhoods, further exacerbating existing inequalities [93,94,95,96].

Third, there is a risk that the enforcement of Slow Streets may be more stringent in underserved communities of color, leading to further mistrust and frustration [20,97].

A resident interview participant remarked the following:

The city [Oakland] did not seem to consult residents enough, as I see potential negative impacts of the Slow Streets program exist, especially on underserved communities of color, [for example,] making it even more difficult to get to markets, schools, hospitals, etc. With more proactive and robust community engagement, the city could have taken steps to mitigate these negative impacts, and could have achieved a more equitable distribution of Slow Streets.

As we close the Reflective Analysis and Results Section, it is useful to return to the social justice framework and connect the quantitative and qualitative research outcomes.

First, the potential risks of the Slow Streets program suggested in the literature above may be understood as the program’s limited attentions to the four elements of social justice, i.e., the program’s falling short of (a) addressing the relevant priorities of underserved communities (relevance), (b) providing easy access to essential places (equity), (c) conducting robust community engagement, and (d) promoting inclusive governance, all four of which are to better address the vulnerability of disadvantaged communities of color.

Second, the outcomes of the qualitative analysis via the three questions and those of quantitative research via rating earlier seem to share some commonalities, i.e., the Slow Streets program tends to receive negative assessments on equity and governance, while relevance and participatory engagement appear to receive mixed assessments.

Taking together the outcomes of this section and the literature reviews earlier, we suggest that several shortcomings of the program emerge and make it less effective in addressing the vulnerability of disadvantaged communities of color.

For the Discussion and Conclusions Sections, it is useful to consider what the implications of those shortcomings of the program are. From that consideration, a lack of trust in public authority, lack of alignment between short-term intervention and long-term planning, and lack of emphasis on people-centered interventions stand out as the broader implications of this study and deserve our final reflection for this article. We delve into those implications as part of the final lessons from this study in the Discussion Section.

5. Discussion

In response to the three guiding questions we posed earlier (whether the Slow Streets program is a right intervention, whether the approach to implementation is appropriate, and whether the program is effective), we suggest that despite some benefits of the programs, there are also several limitations or potentially negative impacts on underserved communities of color.

Building on the conceptual social justice framework, which we used to address the three questions, we assert that while the program with a health focus seems to be an appropriate and timely intervention based on the reasoning that it is conceived to respond quickly to the global pandemic, the program is limited in terms of equity, inclusive governance, and meaningful participatory engagement because of the program’s lack of consideration for the vulnerability of low-income people of color including essential workers (related to equity), lack of opportunities for low income residents’ involvement in decision-making (governance), and a lack of more robust community participation (participatory engagement).

To dig deeper into the implications of the outcomes of our qualitative research coupled with a supplemental quantitative analysis, we organize key implications as our lessons. By doing so, we also intend to explore how the outcomes of the social justice framework-informed analysis of the program can improve it or other tactical placemaking-based interventions.

Regarding our first lesson, a lack of trust in public authority, building trust is essential to successful intervention for improving the health of communities. Trust is one of the key indicators for success shared between equitable community development and public health [52,88].

In both fields, some of the failures in the government-initiated interventions are frequently attributed to mistrust or suspicion that local communities feel toward the local authority due in part to their approaches (e.g., top-down, imposed) [74].

A key to addressing a lack of trust is to conduct robust community engagement and promote meaningful (e.g., comprehensive, inclusive, diverse, personalized) participatory engagement, a key element of social justice [98]. Moreover, building trust takes a long time and requires efforts from all stakeholders. This means that only when community engagement is conducted from the conception of an intervention to its full implementation and when community representatives have seats in a governing body that is addressing a given initiative can trust be built. Both measures above are to promote robust community engagement and inclusive governance in decision-making, which are the two key elements of social justice.

We turn to the second lesson, which is a pair of two opposing ideas, i.e., temporality versus permanence. With the use of tactical, short-term placemaking to implement the Slow Streets program, the fact that it is temporary was not received well by residents in some communities [99]. A temporary project gives the impression that what the city does is to provide a quick fix or a superficial response to a major crisis. Moreover, the barricades, other temporary structures, and construction vehicles in many streets made some people think that their communities might be under a series of constructions or constant changes for emergency-related measures, with the accompanying noise, dust, and potential safety hazards.

A resident interview respondent in San Francisco stated the following:

Temporary signs, barricades, and other temporary structures have been placed in my neighborhood for several months but it seems like they have been there forever. I saw some kids moving some of the barricades and misplaced them unsafely. I am wondering why some of the temporary public spaces cannot be more permanent-looking or made more neatly so that the neighborhood streets look more attractive and stable, safer, and cleaner.

Reconciling or resolving the temporality–permanence conflict requires the consideration of all four values of social justice. For example, practitioners need to work with residents to define the nature of temporary (e.g., temporary public spaces during the pandemic) and permanent interventions (e.g., long-term plans or investments) through conducting robust community engagement (participatory engagement), providing opportunities for residents to play a role in decision-making (governance), and promoting locally appropriate and equitable interventions (relevance and equity). Some of the study cities have made efforts to address the temporality–permanence conflicts, as shown below.

Based on feedback from the communities, some cities including Portland, San Francisco, and Chicago had plans to transform some of their Slow Streets into more permanent pedestrian-only streets [35].

Oakland intends to align its Slow Streets and Essential Place programs with the city’s existing long-term citywide plans (e.g., a bike circulation plan) [5].

Aligning short-term interventions with the city’s long-term investment plans is one of the ways to address the negative perception of temporary or tactical placemaking projects such as Slow Streets.

Building on these lessons, we end our article after the next section with recommendations to strengthen a tactical placemaking approach next time, i.e., the approach enriched by design justice advocacy, place-cultivating, and people-centeredness informed by human geography.

6. Conclusions

Before making recommendations, we conclude that the Slow Streets program is a timely response to the global pandemic in the interest of broader public health. However, the program’s strength is its liability at the same time; an initial success (fast implementation of the program to achieve broader public good) was possible at the expense of a more equitable, socially responsive, human-centered, and community-engaged practice, i.e., a practice of advancing design justice, which was neglected. As a result, the vulnerability of disadvantaged communities of color was not effectively addressed. The program is not fully relevant and not equitable to low-income people of color, including essential workers, and lacks opportunities for underserved residents of color to play a key role in a participatory engagement process and a governing or advisory body for the program. In this regard, the program does not promote social justice effectively. Therefore, the program’s tactical placemaking is not based adequately on a design justice-informed intervention.

We suggest a few recommendations to improve the Slow Streets program for the next pandemic.

While the Slow Streets program has exhibited tactical strengths, the program’s tactical agility is also its weakness. Yet, its limitation can be addressed through a more social justice-informed and human-centered approach to creating or making places (often referred to as placemaking).

Here, it is important for us to make a distinction between placemaking and place-cultivating. In contrast to placemaking, where built environment professionals “direct” the intervention, place-cultivating incorporates a grassroots or bottom-up approach in a significant way. To conduct place-cultivating, placemakers need to play the role of a facilitator of information and intervention as opposed to a gatekeeper of the information and director of the project.

From the literature, we learn that an emphasis on process (via comprehensive community engagement) and the role of local community actors as key decision-makers in the process is essential to robust place-cultivating [29,100]. Advocates of place-cultivating draw inspirations from human geography, as some of its attributes support social construction, a people-centered use of geographic information, and community-centered and process-based efforts.

Human geography is the study of the spatial patterns and processes that shape human behavior, social systems, and interactions with the environment [101]. The discipline can be applied to promoting social justice in a variety of ways [102]. Below are some examples that are relevant to our study.

First, regarding informing urban design, human geography can inform design and planning decisions that promote social justice [92,103,104]. For example, human geographers might analyze patterns of segregation in a city and recommend changes to zoning laws or public housing policies to reduce segregation and promote integration.

Second, with respect to informing healthcare, human geography research can inform healthcare policy and practice by analyzing the geographic distribution of health-promoting or healthcare resources (e.g., clinics, parks, community gardens, green infrastructure) and identifying areas where access to care is limited [105]. Human geographers might also study the social determinants of health, such as poverty and housing insecurity, and advocate for policies that address these underlying causes of health disparities [106].

These are just a few examples of how human geography can be applied to promote social justice and help architects and planners to advance design justice. By understanding the spatial dimensions of social inequality and advocating for policies that address these inequities, human geographers can contribute to a more just and equitable society.

With respect to the Slow Streets programs, human geography can provide important insights and tools to help designers and planners develop a more targeted approach to implementing the programs for neighborhoods, especially those which are vulnerable, under-resourced, or lacking access to essential places.

Among the various applications of human geography that are considered useful during the pandemic, we find the following applications potentially advancing designers’ and planners’ efforts on underserved communities: understanding the spread of the virus, understanding the impact of the pandemic on vulnerable communities, examining the role of mobility in the spread of the virus, and identifying areas with limited access to healthcare [92,107,108,109,110,111].

Overall, human geography can provide useful insights to help architects and planners implement the Slow Streets program and other tactical placemaking strategies more effectively.

Moreover, design coupled with place-cultivating and lessons from social justice and human geography may more effectively address the two key issues emerging from the Slow Streets program, as discussed earlier, namely trust-building and temporality bias, both of which would require an inclusive, equitable, and human-centered approach with long-term community engagement, i.e., a practice of advancing design justice.

The COVID-19 pandemic is often referred to as a “once in a century” pandemic because of its global scale and the significant impact it has had on public health, economies, the built environment, and social systems around the world. While pandemics have occurred throughout history, the COVID-19 pandemic is the first pandemic caused by a coronavirus, and its rapid spread and severity have been unprecedented [112]. However, it is important to note that the term “once in a century” does not necessarily mean that pandemics will only occur every 100 years [113]. There is still a possibility of future pandemics or other crises that will precipitate similar responses. Therefore, it is essential that individuals, design professionals, governments, and international organizations continue to collaborate in taking proactive measures to prevent and control the spread of infectious diseases [114]. Furthermore, it is important that designers who advocate for design justice should play a key role in those collaborative endeavors.

Our study is limited in that it is primarily a qualitative research study based on one example (i.e., the Slow Streets program) and the publicly available website information on the eleven cities we studied. To increase the credibility of this study, we used a combined research strategy via a method of triangulation [80,81] by conducting small sample-based interviews, surveys, and focus groups and incorporating the quantitative and qualitative examinations of the program. Despite the limitations of the study, it provides useful ground for further empirical research after the pandemic is over, which can help local designers, planners, and policymakers prepare to cope with another pandemic in the future and serve vulnerable communities more effectively.