Not All Pandemic Rules Were Restrictions. Let’s Keep the Fun Ones.

In midtown Manhattan, they’re dancing in the streets. Literally. At the Greek restaurant on W. 44th St. where I ate dinner last week, a live band played on the sidewalk and the space between the sidewalk and the restaurant’s extensive outdoor seating became an impromptu dance floor for dozens of revelers. The whole scene represented a transformative use of public space that seemed to make everybody involved ecstatic — on an otherwise staid city block that’s home to such institutions as the Algonquin Hotel and the Harvard Club of New York.

Similarly creative uses of urban space happened around the country. Mayors across the U.S. reclaimed driving and parking space for outdoor dining, biking, shopping, and walking. Now, these Covid-era makeshift arrangements are extending into the vaccination-enabled reopening. They represent a phenomenon that’s rare in the world of law and regulation: when the loosening of legal restrictions to meet an emergency turns into a natural experiment that actually makes things better.