The city is not the same

CITY WALKS stands for the idea that taking the time for deep connections and close conversations was one of the good things to come out of the Covid-19 crisis. Alongside the considerable economic and psychic hardships, we were reminded that life is not all about key performance indicators and return on investment.

With this in mind, we intend for City Walks to contribute to a collective healing process, to re-establish social ties and to forge new ones. We want to reconnect Copenhageners with their community and to promote a broad, civic dialogue about what we can learn from the crisis, and what we want from our city moving forward.

We hosted the first City Walks event in early April, 2021, as the second Danish lockdown dragged on and on. We saw the need to jumpstart connections and conversations, while still respecting health restrictions and guidelines. We invited a number of thinkers, doers, and leaders to follow a route through the city in small groups to talk about everything from food to music to architecture, but also the effects of the pandemic on Copenhagen as an urban space and community.

We have collected portions of their conversations at city walks 1.0 We will continue to expand this collection as an archive of artefacts and reflections about where we have been, and where we are going. We intend for these artefacts to inspire future reflection, dialogue, public debate, and research into what just happened, and what it means moving forward.

We hosted City Walks 2.0 in beautiful Vesterbro on June 21, 2021. Click here to follow along on the walks, and the conversations. Followed by City Walks 3.0 on August 23 in central Copenhagen.

The lockdowns and restrictions have mostly come to an end, but many challenges remain. We need to keep taking the time to slow down and talk.