Introduction

Long periods of lockdown came to dominate 2020 across much of the planet. The use of ‘lockdown’ measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 was a ubiquitous feature of government responses to the crisis across the globe. However, the severity of lockdown measures implemented varies drastically: the most authoritarian iterations, in New Zealand or China for example, saw the public confined to their homes for all but the most essential of purposes such as essential shopping or seeking health care. In the UK, the advice remained similar but with a considerable gap in enforcement, thereby placing a greater emphasis on ‘individual responsibility’. This emphasis foregrounded issues of ‘compliance’, while the nature, effectiveness, and coherence of the restrictions themselves remain relatively untouched in mainstream public discourse. As a result, those seen not to comply with lockdown restrictions were met with increasingly vitriolic responses, being held accountable for the spread of the virus and the UK's bourgeoning death toll. The term ‘covidiots’ quickly infiltrated the lexicon of public discourse amid condemnation of those seen to be using parks, beaches, and other public spaces. The (mis)use of public space had, it seems, become one of the key battlegrounds of cities under lockdown.

That transgression of the ‘stay home’ imperative, framed around the supposed failure of the individual, is perhaps unsurprising when considered as an expression of neoliberal discourse on individual responsibility, and regulation of public space. The individualistic narrative that emerged during the COVID-19 lockdown appears to be a logical extension of social, spatial, and political transformations undertaken under the banner of neoliberalism. However, the conventional understanding of lockdown restrictions and non-compliance elides, inter alia, an understanding of the inter and intra urban inequalities. In this chapter, I begin by briefly sketching out the way in which the ‘lockdown’, and individualistic narratives depicting those who (mis)use public space as ‘covidiots’, exacerbates spatial inequalities which are built into the fabric of densely populated cities. I will conclude by framing this by reflecting on the (im)possibility of compliance with lockdown measures in the (neoliberal) city.

Public space, urban inequality, and the lockdown

In the initial phase of lockdown in the UK, beginning on March 23, the issue of public space became increasingly prominent in public discourse. In particular, pictures of busy parks, beaches, and other public spaces were read, in the public imagination at least, as evidence of lockdown transgression and moral failure.