We are sincerly struck by the shattering effects the Covid-19 pandemic has on our world and are sending out our compassion to everyone in need. Our project team has been affected quite differently by the crisis, since we are spread over the four European countries of Germany, Netherlands, Sweden and Spain, and every government has been launching different measures.
Working and living conditions in Spain have been particularly hard in the past months due to the complete curfew. In other countries restricted access to archives and libraries complicated our research work severely. We acknowledge the current impossibility of organizing personal meetings, but pity the lack of personal discussion and creative analogue momentum. Scientific conferences like the German Historikertag or the Annual Conference of the European Association of Urban History, where we had been accepted to present papers, have been postponed to 2021, which forced us to reorganize our publication plans.
However, we are deeply grateful that we were still able to host our 2nd workshop shortly before the crisis: Our meeting in Rotterdam in early February 2020 was an important milestone throughout the whole project, set key markers for our current research agenda and created beautiful memories of three terrific days in this exciting port city for all of us.