Abstract

Empty and not so empty cities. People isolate themselves, others continue to explore the city because they need it or because they do not fear / believe in the danger. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed part of the world and this paper investigates new perspectives of the concept of urban co-authorship (Rocha, 2019) in the face of the crisis. These perspectives, guided by changes in citizens' relations with the city, also cross the latency of social and racial inequalities, generating responses from people. Thus, we seek to understand how urban appropriations operated and were organized during social isolation and at the reopening, as well as the perspectives for the post--pandemic period, still in a generic way. This paper is supported by authors such as Lefebvre (2008) and Foucault (1987), among others, by the observation of daily life and by interviews.

quarantine; urban co-authorship; isolation; pandemic; surveillance

Resumo

Cidades vazias e nem tão vazias. Pessoas isolam-se, outras continuam explorando a cidade por necessidade ou por não temerem/acreditarem no perigo. A pandemia da Covid-19 mudou parte do mundo, e este artigo busca investigar novas perspectivas do conceito de coautoria urbana (Rocha, 2019) ante a crise. Essas perspectivas, pautadas por modificações nas relações dos cidadãos com a cidade, também transpassam a latência das desigualdades social e racial, gerando respostas das pessoas. Assim, busca-se compreender como as apropriações urbanas funcionaram e se organizaram durante o isolamento social, no momento de reabertura, e quais perspectivas do pós-pandemia, de forma ainda genérica. Este artigo se apoia em autores como Lefebvre (2008) e Foucault (1987), dentre outros, na observação do cotidiano e em entrevistas.

quarentena; coautoria urbana; isolamento; pandemia; vigilância

Introduçtion: methodology of analysis

The present article was developed by merging the research on the concept of urban co-authorship, which has been developed since 2017, and its modifications and updates from the situations that the Covid-19 pandemic imposed on cities. The methodology chosen for the study was initially: the reading of authors who support the construction of the mentioned concept, of others who assist in updating the concept in the pandemic context, and of news that deal with new urban situations that emerged throughout the pandemic. The range of authors studied was not extensive enough for the selected ones to be more in-depth, having enough quantity and quality to support the other methodological actions, to be placed ahead.

The readings, then, were joined to previous research on the concept of urban co-authorship and the observation and analysis of everyday life from personal experiences,¹ 1 The author was able to stay in a home office during her quarantine and lives in a slum. through the perspective of urbanism. However, the need arose to broaden the scope of the context of analysis, both physical and social (related to going out to work/not going out), so that the article would not be limited to the romanticization of "working/staying at home" nor to the daily life of a slum resident. Thus, a third step was to elaborate, convene (through social media and contacts) and conduct online interviews² 2 The interviews were conducted in early May 2020. with some people who needed to go out to work during the period when the commerce was closed, residents of neighborhoods in the West, South and North zones of Rio de Janeiro who traveled by different means of transportation. The interviews were conducted in order to identify situations of urban co-authorship from the people themselves and their different perspectives on the situation, whether because of their neighborhoods or their ways of perceiving the city.

Finally, an overall analysis of all the obtained material was performed, resulting in the perception of new layers of urban coauthors and the development of ideas about the post-pandemic future, permeating surveillance in counterpoint to subversion in urban appropriations.

What is urban co-authorship

Cities are made up of static matter – their buildings, streets, sidewalks, etc. – and of human beings that flow through them, giving them life and making them dynamic and real. However, the static has been prioritized throughout history precisely by a portion of these human beings: those who hold some power and who have a greater distance from the more delivered and palpable experience of the city. The prioritization occurs, for example, through the implementation of spectacular and remotionist projects, to the detriment of the less favored population, i.e., people who flow and live the urban daily life in a more frank and closer to reality. This portion, on the other hand, together with other citizens, appropriates the city in several ways, either through subversive or ordinary uses, or through other ways that are not always well accepted by other layers of the population.

From this perception that reflects on the existence of beings and their conflicts in the urban environment, it is possible to outline the concept of "urban co-authorship," which argues that the authorship of the city is not concentrated only in those who hold some kind of power, whether economic or political, but that it is shared between them and the citizens who appropriate it. This appropriation can be done either by the way in which the space was originally thought or subverted, and this subversion can be taken by those in power as something negative, which generates the aforementioned conflicts.

Jacobs (2011)JACOBS, J. (2011). Morte e vida de grandes cidades. São Paulo, WMF Martins Fontes. comments that the diversity built by cities "[...] rests on the fact that in them many people are very close and they manifest the most different tastes, abilities, needs, lacks, and obsessions" (p. 161). Thus, to understand co-authorship, it is necessary to take into account that there are several layers of urban co-authors that, divided between the top and the bottom, are organized according to their ways of appropriating the city and constitute several actors. This way, some actors appropriate the city for leisure, for displacement, for work, for the reactivation of some space, for a moment of being, among other possibilities. And it is precisely when these differences cross that we can see a bricolage city, full of its own dynamics.

Raban (1974) writes, "Decide who you are, and the city will once again take a fixed shape around you" (apud Bresciani, 2017BRESCIANI, M. S. (2017). “Dimensões do estar no mundo/cidades: o público, o privado, o íntimo”. In: JACQUES, P. B.; BRITTO, F. D. (orgs.). Corpocidade: gestos urbanos. Salvador, Edufba, pp.102-149. , p. 104). In other words, by being part of the city, the citizen is its author, and he is the city itself; and the longing to be, and to appropriate it exists, even if unconsciously. However, with the pandemic of the new coronavirus, this longing begins to emerge in some of these layers of citizens, but depending on their living and working conditions, besides the social and financial ones, the situations of urban co-authorship are designed in very different ways.

The quarentine

The quarantine highlighted the core need to be in the city, to live it and appropriate it, even in the simplest way. As each day went by, the expectations about the day of this appropriation increased. Mental projects about places to go, meetings with friends, work, college, school, family gatherings, a good part of the future plans revolved around urban appropriation, whether as leisure or as displacement. But while this future did not arrive, a whirlwind of sensations and reflections related to the urban environment arose, even if unconsciously, generating the urban distress, defined here as the fear of going out and exploring the urban environment, even if only when moving around in it, or as the sadness of being in quarantine and wanting to appropriate the city. Opposite and complementary feelings at the same time: fear of doing and longing to do. Both can emerge separately or together in each citizen, being in quarantine or not. And this urban distress is, therefore, the great basis of what it is to be an urban co-author in a pandemic.

Statements during the closing of the trade/isolation

As a way to begin to draw the panorama of urban co-authorship in the face of the city experiencing the Covid-19 pandemic, the following are some accounts of residents of the city of Rio de Janeiro, collected from interviews. These people had to go out to work in the first months of the trade closure, and they live in different neighborhoods.

Statement 1 3

This deponent lives in Tanque (Jacarepaguá) and works at a bank in Praça Seca on a daily basis. She uses the BRT, the public transportation system, and never stopped working. The bank had huge lines, and she worked a lot more – every day she worked overtime. Since she deals with the public, she noticed that people went to the bank even when they didn't have to. For this reason, she believes it is wrong that the bank has been considered an essential service for everyone, when it should have been only for the elderly, who have more difficulty with technology. She worked with fear, but, as it became routine, she got used to it, and doesn't go out anywhere else. She is disgusted with the situation of people and sad about the country.

The first week was scary for her, with empty streets and empty BRT. As time went by, she felt that people were not aware or caring, apparently. A month later, she noticed the streets crowded, the BRT completely packed, both going to and returning home. According to her, many people were not working, believed to be on vacation and "played" with the situation, not being able to stay at home. She saw old people in squares, the street was crowded, people were walking, talking, and there was no fuss. She comments that, on the BRT, many people were without masks and that in no day, she saw any surveillance. Not even the traditional street vendors were wearing masks. She says she wonders if Brazilians are naive for acting this way, and clings to the cases of solidarity she sees on the internet ─ the opposite of what she sees in everyday life on the street.

Statement 2

The second interviewee lives in Gardênia Azul, works in Madureira, in an office, and uses the van and BRT every day. She comments that she runs the risk, but she needs to go to work because she needs to take the food home. The first fear is being contaminated, and the second is that the contamination could be fatal. But the biggest fear, still, is of being contaminated and transmitting it to the loved one she lives with. According to her, it's very tense to wake up early, get to the bus and see an individual who doesn't take care of himself or herself, without a mask, sneezing. This has happened many times and has generated great paranoia. She uses alcohol, gets out of balance inside the BRT, not to touch anything, and still has to deal with people who are not respecting.

A co-worker had a cough and was advised to see a doctor, not least because the space and objects at work were shared. Only when they insisted, she took the test, which was positive for Covid-19. From then on, she had to separate her personal belongings at home and isolate herself. For her, some people have symptoms and in order not to be fired or earn less, they don't care and keep going to work. Thus, she felt that she was living all the time on alert, and when she got home she would think: "I have been through another day". The fear was constant, especially since she was from the risk group. For her, unfortunately, people don't take care of themselves or care about each other. They couldn't believe the severity and went on in the city without masks, without thinking about the people in their homes. She comments that if people had to work, that they should do so with attention and awareness. And, if they were in the risk group, like her, that they should redouble their attention.

Statement 3

The third interviewee lives in the Rio das Pedras slum (Jacarepaguá), works in an office in Vila Isabel, on demand, and uses the bus, taking an hour and twenty minutes in displacement. He would get off with fear, because of "the absence of others' consciences", and he would see, all over the city, people who should be at home. He comments that inside the bus everyone was wearing masks, but many were not from the essential services. He felt selfishness everywhere, with people going to bars and parties. He believes that many people have not yet understood gravity, who were putting themselves and others at risk.

Statement 4

The fourth interviewee lives in Tijuca, works in Freguesia, with photography, and uses a car by app, because she carries valuables, taking thirty minutes on the way. In some weeks she would go out twice, in others she would not go out at all. The car always had its windows open, creating more tranquility than buses and subways. She was not afraid, because she thought that if she monitored herself (not putting her hand to her face, washing her hands, using alcohol gel) she would feel in control, and everything would remain calm.

For her, before the city was very empty, and when she went out she realized that something was happening, she felt strange. Later, she noticed everything was normal on the street, which was full, with many people not following the protection measures, almost a parallel universe. Her impression was that at home there was danger and on the street everything was normal. Then came the self--questioning about being paranoid, because she saw people acting normally. As she went out with the mask, she couldn't pretend that nothing was happening, because the mask is visual, and, when the use of the mask became mandatory, she saw the streets more crowded. Before the mask, she noticed a lower volume of cars where she lives. Then the traffic was noisy and normal again, except at night, when the street was empty, without cars and people, with shops closing earlier. She felt that the street, even if empty, was safer.

Statement 5

The fifth interviewee lives in Copacabana and works in Gávea, in an office with a large room and without attending people. She displaces by car and, at the beginning of the pandemic, it took her between twelve and fifteen minutes, because there was no traffic. She went with a co-worker, because they are neighbors. So she lived with the same people every day, going two to three times a week on a rotation basis, and the room was almost empty. She was not afraid to go to work, but to go places, like the market. The difference she noticed in the streets, compared to the previous period, was that they were very empty, more than usual. There was no traffic, but she still noticed some people walking, mostly in masks. To her, people were quieter, more closed and introspective, a feeling reinforced by the mask. She considered it strange, sad and depressing to go out into the street.

The urban coauthor explores the city of the pandemic

From these accounts and observations, as well as from personal experiences, it is understood that urban co-authorship in the pandemic, during the quarantine/closure of trade period, took place in different ways, depending on the living conditions and thinking of the citizens. In the following, then, urban co-authorship is organized by groups, according to their particularities.

Full Quarantine

The city was a territory of dangerous exploitation, being appropriated at specific moments and only for the use of essential services. Public space, therefore, was used only for quick displacements, and there was no spontaneous or modifying appropriation of use. For the most worried, for example, a trip to the market could become "the moment", in the sense that it was one of the only moments in their daily lives when they could explore the city and, at the same time, "the moment", in the sense that it was a tense point, the moment of exposing their bodies to the danger of contamination that the city offered.

Those who have to leave ─ constant fear or anesthesia of everyday life

This group had to work away from home, either in essential services or in other places that remained open.⁴ 4 Frontline health care workers, such as nurses and doctors, are considered a case apart here, because in addition to the concern with displacement, they have the concern within their own work; a good part of them remaining isolated from their family. Therefore, their daily lives are completely different from the groups described. Part of these people were afraid of leaving, because of the moment of displacement inside public transportation, or of the interaction with co-workers, and/or with the public they serve, especially because it is a situation, if not daily, almost daily. Thus, what was once a daily mechanical act, like getting on a bus, became an urban distress. The concern of contamination and death was great, but, for some, the concern of carrying the virus home and contaminating family members was even greater. The city, then, was a space of daily tension, and its free appropriation did not happen either.

A portion of this group may have become anesthetized by daily life or even exercised their minds to be able to work without despair, according to the reports described. The anesthesia of daily life is something common in any sphere, and it would not be different in this situation described and analyzed here. The already anesthetized workers did not appropriate the city in different ways, other than commuting to work. However, this displacement occurred in a calmer and less desperate way than in the previous group. The urban distress, for this group, was mild or none, and one of the reasons for this may have been the use of the mask. Part of the reports, besides personal observation, puts that from the moment that wearing the mask was mandatory, the flow of people in the street increased. Besides being visual, the mask brings a sense of security, and some probably understand it as an authorization to be able to go out in the city, even if many were still not using it at the time of the interviews.

Negationist group

The negationist group is, with no doubt, the most complex to understand. These co-authors ignored the recommendations of social distancing and, for them, the city remained a territory of exploitation and appropriation. The urban co-authorship became, in this group, even more latent, because the simple bodily occupation of the street space by the citizen changed it completely, precisely because he was not allowed to do so. Bathers who insisted on having fun at the beach, people who promoted parties in the streets or who stayed in the squares playing or interacting with colleagues. The examples are many and go beyond the barriers of the zones in which the city of Rio de Janeiro is divided. Here, even if the appropriation in itself was not subversive (like sitting on a bench in a square that was designed for such, instead of lying on it, for example), it becomes subversive because, at that moment, anyone was. And this subversion, which has always been fundamental and interesting for a living and pulsating urban environment, becomes its own condemnation.

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The tension of the exit on the part of those in full quarantine was even stronger because this was the time when there was a need to cross paths or interact with the other two groups. Furthermore, observing the appropriation of the negationist groups fueled a feeling of powerlessness or even anger, as it felt like a postponement for the end of the pandemic. Those who needed to leave had, in their timid appropriation, the coexistence with the other citizens who also belonged to this layer, sharing the space and the feelings, either of fear or of conditioning. And the feeling of fear was potentiated by the permanence of the negationists in the urban environment.

Pre-pandemic co-authors versus co-authors in pandemic

Based on the layers already identified by Rocha (2019)ROCHA, G. (2019). Coautoria urbana: a funcionária, o produtor e o camelô . Dissertação de mestrado. Rio de Janeiro, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. of urban coauthors – formal citizens, marginalized and urban activists –, we also seek to understand how they behave ahead of the pandemic and the period of social isolation. It is important to note that the previously mentioned coauthors are distributed along the layers worked on below, that is, in all of them it is possible to find diverse ways of viewing social isolation and quarantine. Therefore, here we will exemplify how their previous relationship with the urban space changed in a general way with the pandemic.

Formal Citizens: in the pre-pandemic, they used the city space for waiting, displacement, and/or entertainment, appropriating themselves, in the expected way or not, as people at leisure, tourists, or company employees. In the quarantine period, these coauthors were part of the portion of those who were able to do home office, as well as isolate themselves. At the same time, within this layer there are actors who needed to take risks, moving to "formal" work, such as essential services. There are also citizens who became unemployed and, for this reason, went home or to the streets, looking for a job, and in lines to get emergency help from the government, or even who lost their homes and had to settle in the streets or in occupations.⁵ 5 Several citizens, for example, were unable to afford rent in São Paulo and started living in an occupation on the margins of the Imigrantes Highway. More information in Barcellos and Tavolieri (2020) .

Marginalized Citizen: in the pre-pandemic, the city was a place to work or live for these coauthors, so they needed the urban space to live and survive, often creating subversions of the proposed uses, working as street vendors and/or living as homeless people. During the pandemic, these co-authors often formed endless lines in banks in an attempt to receive emergency aid from the government,⁶ 6 For more information about the emergency aid, see https://auxilio.caixa.gov.br/#/inicio> . Accessed on: August 24, 2020. because many of them did not have access to the technology that would allow them to do so by digital methods or due to document problems, etc. Moreover, the street continued to be a common territory of occupation, where several of them remained selling products, even if without a fixed point.⁷ 7 Many street vendors took advantage of the crowds in the bank lines to try to sell some product. Within this layer, the people living on the streets continued with their occupation of the urban space, now with more difficulties due to the risk of contamination from the disease.

Urban Activists: in the pre-pandemic, these co-authors sought to activate/reactivate city spaces, either through appropriations indicating the existence of the space, subversive appropriations, or stimulating the appropriation of other people, among other possibilities. During the pandemic, most of these actors were aware of the need to stay at home. The impossibility of direct urban interventions and actions moved the live broadcasting on the internet of debates, concerts, videos and festivals by these actors, usually accompanied by requests for help for "vaquinhas", since many of them could not continue with their work; reason why this is probably one of the last groups that will return to normal. Some of these actors are also proposing (or executing) urban micro-interventions, as small ways to improve the spaces, especially after the reopening.

*

After the understanding of these multiple perspectives on the forms of urban appropriation, it is possible to outline an idea of how this city works in the pandemic in a more ordinary and comprehensive way, to then work on more specific issues.

The affirmation of the image-city

A post on a social mídia, there is an aerial image of the sidewalks along the Copacabana beachfront, with its beautiful designs by Burle Marx, and the words "When people leave, art appears”. Here we observe the consolidation of the idea of the image-city, which is a spectacle only presented, representing false realities. Its authorship is concentrated and not distributed, and this image-city deceives the consciousness, so that urban actions/interventions are easily accepted, even if excluding, and its production becomes merchandise, and not a space that contemplates its daily users. By appropriating the cities, would their co--authors be responsible for hiding the art that is urban design? Here it is defended the neagtive answer to this question. Citizens confer legitimacy to the art that is the city. What is the purpose of a work if it cannot be appreciated? This empty city can be observed by only a few. So it is art for whom?

The cities are "beautiful" empty, the postcards make a monumental impression, the beaches look bucolic. These are the image-cities, beautiful to be appreciated from afar and in which a disturbance leads to punishment. It is a fact that in the moment of a pandemic, with all scientific certainty, they should remain preserved, so that the human being himself would be preserved. After all, the human being is part of the city, and if he gets sick, the city gets sick and ceases to exist as life, as movement.

In this way, when empty cities are presented on television or on the Internet, isolation should be able to elucidate the confirmation, for the citizens, that urban co-authorship is real. Rather than simply understanding that the city is art when they are not there, the opposite should be posited: that the city without them is nothing but a static, dead image, and that they have full importance in the space. It became necessary, with a certain urgency, to spread the message that the city should be empty as a way to preserve lives. However, it is fundamental that citizens understand that, precisely because they are so important to urban existence, and as a reflection on the preservation of a living urban future, they should have stayed home, if they could. Thus, the following will work on the transfer of urban co-authorship into the homes during the quarantine.

The urban house – the need to be city

Staying at home, in quarantine, allowed them to practice their wandering, in a more detached way than in the urban environment, because the dangers are less. Thus, through the wandering exploration of the house, a previously mechanical relationship became more attentive. Different constructive elements of the house, as well as other objects and spaces, began to be appropriated and often converted to uses similar to those of urban elements. The work, the school, the academy, the cinema, the concert hall, all these entered the houses, changing the relationships of their inhabitants and transforming them for short periods.

Citing Simmel (1976)SIMMEL, G. (1976). “A metrópole e a vida mental”. In: VELHO, O. G. (org.). O fenômeno urbano . Rio de Janeiro, Zahar. , Bresciani (2017)BRESCIANI, M. S. (2017). “Dimensões do estar no mundo/cidades: o público, o privado, o íntimo”. In: JACQUES, P. B.; BRITTO, F. D. (orgs.). Corpocidade: gestos urbanos. Salvador, Edufba, pp.102-149. writes that "the door represents in a decisive way how separating and connecting are only two aspects of one single and the same act," and, during isolation, it represented the separation between the "dangerous" and virus-contaminated world and the safe haven. However, here the focus will be on the elements of the house that are obviously very important: the window and the balcony, which had much greater functions than lighting and ventilation. It is emphasized that the window is the primary necessity, especially in the pandemic of a disease that has respiratory problems as its main symptoms. In the quarantine, more than ever, the windows were the major point of connection of the house with the city, and the balcony became "the city" and was the exterior in which one could directly receive sunlight and wind, being the place in which the body was placed in a more exposed and visible situation to other windows and balconies, almost like a small urban simulation.

In addition to this outside-in interference, the window/ balcony allowed the inside-outside. Never has so much been observed, and this was often the way to be closer to urban life. Depending on the window/balcony, the citizen made urban and social analyses without knowing it, only through observation. He noticed what time x or y situation happened every day, when and where the sun shines the most – both outside and inside his own house – when there was a greater or lesser flow of people and vehicles, and the moments of noise and silence.

Through the relationships between the outside and the inside, exchanges and interactions between citizens on their balconies/windows were fostered. Political demonstrations through “panelaços”, small concerts, neighbors singing "Happy Birthday" in chorus to birthdays or other songs. Jacobs (2011)JACOBS, J. (2011). Morte e vida de grandes cidades. São Paulo, WMF Martins Fontes. writes that "[...] if interesting, fruitful, and meaningful contacts among city dwellers were limited to coexistence in private life, the city would be useless" (p. 59), and these contacts on balconies/windows were the new city happening, the urban being emerging, that is, its coauthorship adapted to the new conditions, but obviously it did not disappear. It will never disappear.

And the slum?

Still in the 1960s, Lefebvre writes about the problematic of dwelling, which is placed miserable ahead of bureaucracy and consumption, touching "[...] mainly the proletariat without sparing other social layers and classes [...]" (2008, p. 138). In this way, the author posits that "for those who would still doubt its existence as a class, the segregation and misery of its 'habitat' designates in practice the working class" (ibid.). When read, these words can sketch in the imagination the figure of the slums, segregated from the city, called by many the "informal city." And segregation creates even larger creases between the slum population and the population of other regions of the city in the midst of the pandemic.

Underreporting in slums set off alarm bells. The working class needed to continue their normal lives without much support from government institutions. The emergency aid provided by the government came in a totally irregular way, with cell phone applications that worked poorly or not at all, which caused huge lines in the banks, financial difficulties for these groups, etc. In São Paulo, according to Rolnik,⁸ 8 Raquel Rolnik leads the research, done in partnership with the Pólis Institute, crossing data from areas with the highest concentration of Covid-19 hospitalizations and data from the São Paulo transportation company (SPTrans). For more information, see Ziegler (2020) . the issue of commuting to work was a determining factor for the increase in cases of Covid-19, more than due to the insalubrity of the residences in poorer regions.

The acceleration of cases and deaths among black and poor people is one more historical evidence of social inequality and structural racism in Brazilian society.⁹ 9 For a better understanding on the subject, see Nascimento (2016) . Displacement to work, especially through public transportation, is also displacement and transport of the virus, making regions that concentrate the largest number of residents who could not work from home (because they are part of essential services or because of the need for a minimum income) the most affected by the pandemic. That is, these citizens become the most affected because they expose themselves.

Furthermore, most favela residents do not make possible all the interaction and poetic quarantine described above. In a well-ventilated/lighted and reasonably sized dwelling, be it in a favela or not, there is the most palpable possibility of bringing the city into the house and of somehow exercising one's co-authorship there. However, in a one room house located in a slum, badly ventilated and illuminated and/or that does not meet all the minimum habitability needs, the city has always been the house or its extension, precisely because of its conditions. In this way, it becomes almost impossible to bring this city into the house with such poetry. If the street is an extension of the house, in many cases, the urban co-authorship is pulsating and occurs not only through body appropriations of the urban space, but also with objects, with physical interventions, temporary or not. In other words, it is almost impossible to force a population that has the street as part of its home to be enclosed, because their own housing does not allow them minimum conditions of comfort.

Inside part of the slums of Rio de Janeiro, during the quarantine, it was possible to observe some protective postures, such as the use of masks and some businesses only functioning by delivery. However, street life appeared to be almost "normal" in some areas. This concerns not the non-essential businesses being open, which involves complex issues such as the need for income, but rather the appropriation of the street by people who have no reason or obligation to do so. This form of co-authorship – the city as a place for leisure and waiting – has fomented great concern within the regions, both because of the rapid dissemination of the disease and its gravity, which increases as soon as sanitation as a whole fails, preventing the proper precautions from being taken. An example that shows how complex this co- -authorship is: some people simply go to the street/sidewalk and stand there at a certain time to sunbathe or breathe fresh air, because their houses possibly do not offer this kind of essential comfort. The occupation of the street makes up for the failure of the home, but in the midst of a pandemic, the street becomes the very place of danger of contamination and ill health. And this danger is almost ignored, because it seems somehow distant and less uncomfortable than spending the day inside one's own house, whose unhealthiness is something immediate and palpable.

Besides all these internal problems, there is little or no public power action in the slum, and surveillance against agglomerations was smaller and much more complex to be executed, also due to its morphological configuration. As Carolina Maria de Jesus (1963)JESUS, C. M. (1963). Quarto de despejo . Edição Popular. puts it, "when I'm in the city I have the impression I'm in the drawing room with its crystal chandeliers, its viludo [sic] carpets, its sitim [sic] cushions. And when I'm in the slum, I have the impression that I'm an object out of use, worthy of being in a trash room" (p. 33), and completes by commenting that "what is in the trash room is either burned or thrown in the trash" (ibid.). In other words, the pandemic makes even more evident the little attention paid to the slum populations, always taken as the city's dump room.

What we observe, then, is the rise of organized collaboration groups made up of people from the slums themselves, to help each other in any way possible. Thus, groups like Frente de Mobilização Maré¹⁰ 10 See site of the Frente de Mobilização Maré. Available at: https://www.frentemare.com/ . Access on: August 25, 2020. and the organization of the Covid-19 Unifying Panel in the Slums,¹¹ 11 More information on the Covid-19 Unifying Panel on Slums website. Available at: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/8b055bf091b742bca021221e8ca73cd7/ . Access on: August 25, 2020. among others, take into their own hands a role that should be played by the public authorities. The favela cannot wait. If it waited, it would no longer exist physically in the city, due to the valorization by the public power of the removal actions that have existed in Rio de Janeiro since Pereira Passos.

Manifestations

George Floyd was murdered by a white police officer in the United States, sparking waves of protests in cities around the world. The black boy João Pedro was killed while he was in his home, provoking manifestations in Brazil. False news and the dissemination of hate shocked people and, together with the Black Lives Matter movement, fomented weekly anti-fascist demonstrations,¹² 12 See Pires and Magri (2020) . also leading to the removal¹³ 13 See Corrêa (2020) . of statues of racist figures in public spaces or their replacement, even if temporary, by figures representative of the anti-racist movement, artistic interventions,¹⁴ 14 The phrase Black Lives Matter was painted on a large scale on 16th street, in Washington, in the middle of the demonstrations against racism, and the city hall changed its name, baptizing it with the mentioned phrase. More information in O Estado de S.Paulo (2020). among other actions.

Could it be possible to perceive, through this wave, the outline of some revolution or world transformation? The world experienced similar revolutions in the 1960s, promoted subversive occupations of public space with great frequency, built small provisional memorials to central figures in the places where they were murdered, etc. That is, some of these scenes that in 2020 were seen in the news and experienced in the streets have been seen before. However, even if the form of urban co-authorship built from the occupation of the street by demonstrations is historical, there is an unprecedented factor that is the global backdrop of 2020: the pandemic, which makes the outcry and protest even more potent and urgent. The protesters, ignoring rules of social isolation and risking their lives in some way, do so precisely because the risk has been there for a long time, and the opportunities are few. Occupying the street regardless of the possibility of contracting the virus highlights the great need for shouting, for affirmation, for contestation, for urgent change.

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Lefebvre (2008)LEFEBVRE, H. (2008). O direito à cidade . São Paulo, Centauro. writes about rights that open paths and define civilizations, one of them being the right to the city, but in the sense of urban life, of being able to meet and exchange, so that one is allowed "[...] the full and entire use of those moments and places, etc. [...]" (p. 139). However, according to the author, this right has particular meanings for the working class, which I associate here entirely with the slum and/or black population. He states that this class, "[...] rejected from the centers to the peripheries, dispossessed of the city, thus expropriated of the best results of its activity [...]" (ibid.), considers the right to the city the means and the objective at the same time, and "[...] this virtual action of the working class also represents the general interests of civilization and the particular interests of all social layers of 'inhabitants'" (ibid.). In this way, we can see once again the strength of the population itself, which seeks its rights, fights for a city that attends to everyone, exercising urban co-authorship in different ways, either through independent actions for the improvement of the slums, or through political demonstrations in the streets.

The future and the present: control and transition to reopening

Control and surveillance

When Foucault (1987)FOUCAULT, M. (1987). Vigiar e punir . Petrópolis, Vozes. writes about a time of plague in a city in the late seventeenth century, it is possible to see that the current disciplinary mechanisms continue to exist, but in a new guise involving advanced technology. Still, this city hit by the pandemic, or the plague, as Foucault puts it, divides itself in a massive and binary way, resorting to "[...] multiple separations, to individualizing distributions, to a deepened organization of surveillances and controls, to an intensification and ramification of power" (1987, p. 222). Therefore, two forms of attempted domination are brought here: the first concerns the government itself, which influences, from the recommendation of the use of masks (or the opposition to the recommendation), to the proposal of control of the public space, such as the application for beach use in Rio de Janeiro;¹⁵ 15 See Extra (2020) . the second form concerns the purchasing power of certain layers of the population, which are the ones that can access drive-ins (because they are economically powerful and/or have their own vehicles), as will be placed below.

Surveillance not only prunes people's behavior in the urban environment, but also makes them absent from that environment, which has built for many the optional isolation long before the pandemic, for fear of exposure to the surveillance present in every place. At the same time that surveillance caused this isolation because people did not want or know how to deal with it, its planning and omnipresence became "[...] an evidence in everyday life" and became accepted "as an antidote to the diversified and always lurking violence [...]" ( Bresciani, 2017BRESCIANI, M. S. (2017). “Dimensões do estar no mundo/cidades: o público, o privado, o íntimo”. In: JACQUES, P. B.; BRITTO, F. D. (orgs.). Corpocidade: gestos urbanos. Salvador, Edufba, pp.102-149. , p. 110). This positoning exposes how contrasting are the consequences of this surveillance, which generate diverse situations and build new ways of perception of urban everyday life.

At the time of the pandemic, with the behavior of much of the population ignoring isolation, surveillance became necessary and, at the same time, a tool of control. Foucault (1987)FOUCAULT, M. (1987). Vigiar e punir . Petrópolis, Vozes. writes that "the pestilent city [...], the city immobilized in the operation of an extensive power that acts differently on all individual bodies - is the utopia of the perfectly governed city" (p. 222), which can outline how control and surveillance permeate various spheres of the pandemic and the moment of reopening, in which "the relation of each one with its illness and death passes through the instances of power, through the register that is made of them, through the decisions that they take" (ibid, p. 220). Police rounds, blitz, fines, drones as surveillance against crowds, and the disk-aglomeration, for denunciations in Rio de Janeiro, were some of the forms of control used to try to keep the population at home and reduce the number of Covid-19 contagions. However, there is concern about the future use of these instruments of control.

Foucault (ibid.) writes that "discipline is a political anatomy of detail" (p. 166), and it is known that in the pandemic, the body is creating new disciplines. For some groups, there are few possibilities for idleness in behavior, given that concern for detail is placed, and even the behavior of others is policed to preserve one's own life. Moreover, so that the city can be practiced, Foucault's (ibid.) body-object articulation is made present, as, for example, through the use of new elements, such as the mask, the alcohol gel, the markings on the floor of the places, supporting detachment, also corresponding to a disciplinary tactic that, as the author writes, connects the singular and multiple. Certeau (2014)CERTEAU, M. D. (2014). A invenção do cotidiano: 1. Artes de fazer. Petrópolis, Vozes. writes that instruments such as the cudgel and handcuffs, which are physical, "[...] make up a series of objects designed to mark force of the law upon its subject [...]" (p. 211). However, another concern is with the non-physical instruments, which usually exist before the physical ones, as, for example, the Municipal Codes of Posture, which not only controlled the behavior of the population of Rio de Janeiro, but also acted as a form of reaffirmation of the separation of the carioca elite,¹⁶ 16 See Distrito Federal (1984). worked in the last decades of the 19th century. The invisible and unofficial laws are even stronger instruments than the official ones, coming from cultural constructions throughout history. Public order, according to Jacobs (2011)JACOBS, J. (2011). Morte e vida de grandes cidades. São Paulo, WMF Martins Fontes. , "is maintained fundamentally by the intricate, almost unconscious network of spontaneous controls and patterns of behavior present among and enforced by the people themselves" (p. 32). In this way, control ensures that the sacralized city remains so, being able to be appropriated only by certain groups, and, when there is the unexpected, it is considered "[...] a spatial desecration, 'a sin' that deserves to be punished or prevented, so that the image remains 'beautiful and static', limiting, educating and repairing the body that exists there" ( Rocha, 2019, pROCHA, G. (2019). Coautoria urbana: a funcionária, o produtor e o camelô . Dissertação de mestrado. Rio de Janeiro, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. , p. 51). Therefore, control – for some – has always hovered and generated urban conflicts. In the moment of a pandemic, control is necessary, but how will the future of cities be in the face of this control?

The instruments of punishment and prevention of city use considered inappropriate by the authorities are increasingly sophisticated and therefore effective. This fact can be a great threat to the idea of urban co-authorship when it subverts the use positively, transforming it according to the needs of the moment of that citizen. It can be a threat to the spontaneous that brings life and, consequently, can bring security to public spaces. At the same time, even with all this control that existed in the pandemic, many remained appropriating public spaces, without concern for punishment. Could this be evidence that, in the future, it will be possible to go against this system of control and urban surveillance?

General reopening overview

From the search for the readjustment of uses in cities, forms of urban occupation long advocated by some urbanists have grown up around the world. The United Kingdom has introduced incentives for the use of bicycles – a means of transportation that facilitates social distancing, preventing contagion from the virus. European cities have promoted the closure of car lanes for pedestrian use and more permanent occupation, and parklets have been built in New York, and group spaces have been marked out in parks to ensure social distance.¹⁷ 17 See AFP and Ansa (2020) and UOL (2020) .

In Brazil, the reopening came through work rotations, "golden rules" of the city hall in Rio de Janeiro, reduced capacity of the establishments, etc. Even so, little care was taken. The beach, for example, even when it was forbidden for swimming and/or occupying the sand strip, received public who broke the law, many even without masks. The attempt to implement the project of organization of the beaches of Rio de Janeiro by fences to be reserved by application came as a response and attempt to control the government, but it was so out of touch with the reality of the city that it had its failure imminent, even before it was effectively implemented, because it is known that the beach is a space for socializing, it is in the carioca soul.

Moreover, with the economic crisis generated by the pandemic, several establishments closed their doors, bringing a state of abandonment to their respective urban contexts, which, despite the general resumption, makes some spaces more empty and even dangerous. The shocking images of crowding in the streets of Brás,¹⁸ 18 See Vieira (2020) . in São Paulo, on the first day of the reopening, also show the need for work, which overlays the concern with the pandemic, as previously put.

It is known that the continuity of the quarantine period spawned new situations and habits in the city. The drive-ins – a success in past decades – returned in a new form, as a solution to the impossibility of crowding, with limits on the number of vehicles and people per vehicle, which made the maximum capacity very small, with reservations made by app booking for bathroom visits, horns and headlights as applause. And the rethinking has gone beyond the cinema, spreading to other spheres of entertainment, such as mega concerts (some in stadiums), art exhibitions (drive-thru offering cars to those who don't have one and with a maximum stopping time in front of a work of art) and even the traditional circus (with a VIP area for cars to be closer to the arena), as well as drive-in wedding mega-marriages.¹⁹ 19 See Vieira (2020) . A good part of these drive-ins appear as a solution for the population's entertainment, while maintaining prevention, health and care against Covid-19. However, it is known that this form of entertainment is not very accessible to the masses because, even though it is entertainment "on the street", it is necessary to have a car, as well as to be able to afford the cost of the ticket.

Therefore, there are growing concerns that go beyond the pandemic itself, such as the emptying of public spaces in the cities, as well as the rapid expansion of the gap between social classes. One situation leads to the other and even fosters the concern with the hygienist discourse that, throughout history, has played a fundamental role in the composition of social and racial inequality. Even if, throughout the city, the streets became crowded after the reopening, as near the bars in Leblon or Barra da Tijuca – yielding "carteiradas"²⁰ 20 See G1 Rio (2020) . and humiliation by citizens from more favored classes, the crowded favela streets, as well as their dances, were considered the great "disseminators of the disease" in the eyes of certain groups of society. Of course, at a time of pandemic, crowding anywhere is wrong, but the concern is that these situations arise as opportunities for legitimizing a discourse of removals. Moreover, many of those who work in these crowded establishments in prime neighborhoods are the residents of poorer regions, such as favelas and suburbs, and can become vectors of the disease, while the forms of urban appropriation of their customers, drinking and interacting in the street, without masking and distance, remain normal.

New coauthoring layers

With the reopening, the organization of the coauthor groups remains, with the addition of new general layers.

The immune: in this layer, the coauthors are citizens who may or may not have previously isolated themselves, become contaminated or believe they have been contaminated with the disease, got a cure, and believe they are immune. Therefore, their urban appropriation is back to what it has always been, totally carefree, with little or no care.

The cautious: in this layer, its coauthors could and/or wanted to remain in quarantine, but, with the reopening, with the isolation time, for having been contaminated and/or for believing to have been contaminated with the disease, they felt some freedom and/or need to make small, timid and careful exits and appropriations of the city.

Final considerations

About the epidemics of the 19th century in Europe, Bresciani (2017)BRESCIANI, M. S. (2017). “Dimensões do estar no mundo/cidades: o público, o privado, o íntimo”. In: JACQUES, P. B.; BRITTO, F. D. (orgs.). Corpocidade: gestos urbanos. Salvador, Edufba, pp.102-149. explains that "the city started to be thought of as a space that, transformed by technique, would become an ideal means to form healthy, moralized, and hard-working people" (p. 121), which refers to Certeau's (2014) statement that "the body repairs itself. It educates itself. It even manufactures itself" (p. 213). The post-epidemic city (or pandemics) can bring two aspects in its constructions: it can be an instrument of control of citizens, manufacturing them, but it can also be an instrument of positive transformations of the urban space, as previously put. Therefore, it is questionable whether, in the post-pandemic, there will be a positive conversion of urban co-authorship through the adoption of innovative and long-desired measures, such as bicycle priority, and a drive against exclusionary and aggressive control of the city.

Bresciani (2017)BRESCIANI, M. S. (2017). “Dimensões do estar no mundo/cidades: o público, o privado, o íntimo”. In: JACQUES, P. B.; BRITTO, F. D. (orgs.). Corpocidade: gestos urbanos. Salvador, Edufba, pp.102-149. comments that "[...] among the goals of improving urban living conditions was always present to civilize beings considered 'semi-barbaric'" (p. 120). Thus, it is understood that "civilizing" means imposing one's own customs, excluding any genuine culture of these beings, and improving urban life means removing them from targeted places for capital, as a form of urban "cleansing." These goals remain, but during the pandemic they are appeased and turn into ignorance of the problems. Minimal attempts to care for the slum population are made, such as, for example, through hotels for the elderly,²¹ 21 See Campos (2020) . but they are very far from being what the population really needs. In industrialization, for Lefebvre (2008)LEFEBVRE, H. (2008). O direito à cidade . São Paulo, Centauro. , "[...] the working class suffers the consequences of the explosion of the old morphologies. It is a victim of segregation, a class strategy enabled by this explosion. Such is the current form of the negative situation of the proletariat" (p. 138), and one can state the same in the pandemic moment, in which, through the transformations caused by it, the class struggle becomes even more evident in all areas, as, for example, in the division between those who could work from home and those who needed to leave – especially using public transportation – i.e., working class – less favored. In the urban appropriations, this was also evident, whether during the isolation period or the reopening. The insalubrity and lack of sanitation in the slums also became latent and urgent situations. For this reason, a discussion must obviously be promoted and raised among architects and urban planners, government officials, among other professionals, in addition to the population itself, which is the most interested party. This discussion must be intense and not remain in articles and round tables, being developed and leading to the construction and execution of really effective urban policies that contemplate the neediest citizens, without exclusion or removal. Effective public works, improvement and provision of infrastructure, decent housing, in addition to technical consultancy, which should be a public service.

Lefebvre (ibid.) explains about the ideal of planning, that is, the balance between classes and powers, as a way to think of a really effective urbanization that meets social demands, besides the need for a science of the city. In this way, for the author, "only if the working class and its political representatives take charge of planning will it be possible to profoundly modify social life [...]" (p. 139). However, how can this investment by/in the working class occur in a period of so much misinformation and fake news, in which book knowledge is confronted by "knowledge" shared on apps? And how is it possible to plan from the working class if it is more and more stifled, excluded and exterminated within urban policies? Planning is believed to be possible through the micro-resistances that surface in the city and hopefully surface in the post-pandemic city, just as Jacobs (2011)JACOBS, J. (2011). Morte e vida de grandes cidades. São Paulo, WMF Martins Fontes. writes: "seemingly unpretentious, unreasonable, and random, street contacts constitute the small change from which the city's exuberant public life can flourish" (p. 78).

Moreover, with the quarantine of those who were able to do it, the valorization of the city was perceived from its "loss", such as the lack of daily activities, of meetings between people, of seeing life. Some missed even the most painful situations of the urban daily life, like the time in public transportation. Thus, complementing this idea of the future, just as the mechanical relationship with the house became more attentive and open, the longing for the co-creative practice of the city can also become more attentive after the pandemic. The fear of contagion added to a certain trauma will probably still hover intensely in the air of the city, but the relief of the return to interaction, to the sight of places so familiar and that were so far away may fuel a deeper and more attentive relationship to the urban environment. When Bresciani (2017)BRESCIANI, M. S. (2017). “Dimensões do estar no mundo/cidades: o público, o privado, o íntimo”. In: JACQUES, P. B.; BRITTO, F. D. (orgs.). Corpocidade: gestos urbanos. Salvador, Edufba, pp.102-149. writes about the post II World War era, she explains that at the same time that control mechanisms hovered, destroyed cities were rebuilt and new cities were planned. Pandemics are known to have revolutionized societies historically, as have wars. However, while physical post-war cities were rebuilt so that society could be rebuilt later or in parallel, in pandemics almost the opposite occurs: the city is rebuilt out of society.

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