Urban change and the uneven geography of Covid-19 lockdowns: Insights from the use of running as a method in Lisbon

Though much has been written on the urban politics of the Covid-19 pandemic, systematic, qualitative data on the uneven geography of the lockdowns are fundamentally missing, in large part because of the limitations of stay-at-home orders for fieldwork research. This article reports from the first study to have directly observed, and systematically mapped, the uneven distribution of the impacts of a lockdown over a city and its public spaces. Between January and March 2021, during Portugal's second national lockdown, I used running as a method to collect observational data on public spaces of the city of Lisbon. Building on this systematic mapping, I link the geography of impacts of the lockdown with trajectories of urban change: on the one hand, I reflect on the variegation of impacts vis-à-vis patterns of uneven urban development; and, on the other, discuss the role of visibility and vitality of activities in the public space in shaping the political rationalities of the lockdown. • Provides unique observational data on the urban impacts of Covid-19 lockdowns. • Links uneven urban development with the variegation of impacts of Covid-19 lockdowns. • Enriches the conceptualization of the political rationalities of Covid-19 lockdowns. • Contributes to the articulation of political economic and biopolitical lenses in urban critique.