Publication details
Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on urban compactness and centrality: the case of retail network changes in Brno (Czech Republic)
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| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| Citation | |
| Description | During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Czech government applied strict rules for preventing meeting people. These restrictions paralyzed cities’ everyday dynamics as majority of inner spaces, including gyms, non-food stores, cinemas and other facilities were closed. By using fine-scale retail store data from 2017 and 2021, the paper aims to reveal consequences of the restrictions on urban compactness and centrality on the example of Brno, mid-sized European city. In Brno, retail network suddenly changed its spatio-temporal pattern with the consequence of disrupted morphological and functional urban structures. The changes of urban compactness resulted in strengthening of dispersed arrangements by empowering selected city functions which were not subjected to applied restrictions. Furthermore, violated compact city logic had a diverse impact on the accessibility of stores depending on socio-economic and spatial characteristics of urban population. The unprecedented situation allows to discover new perspectives within the debate on compact and polycentric city concepts which can be inspiring for urban planning practice. |