How Covid-19 will impact our cities in the long term

‘The biggest opportunity for cities from this pandemic is to build back better with the planned fiscal stimulus: more climate resilient infrastructure, green initiatives such as increasing public spaces, creating vehicle free streets, making bike lanes, refurbishing buildings to multiple uses and thereby doing more with less. This cannot be done by the public sector alone. Cities will need to attract private sector and social partners to close the financing gap. Good governance is an imperative to attract private financing and to work with the private sector.’

Read here (World Economic Forum, Nov 25, 2020)

UrbanFutures: Building a trust economy

‘In a time of crisis, trust is a key currency. Not just trust in the system, but as a foundation for economic recovery. Here, we look at the essence of what makes an economy tick, how this relates to the current Covid-19 crisis and its impact on the most vulnerable, and the role of government in building a bounce-back economy based on trust.

‘Developing the trust economy involves three key aspects: (1) An enhanced role for government (2) Hyperlocalism and digital infrastructure (3) Protecting the welfare of the people.’

Read here (The Edge, May 4, 2020)

How life in our cities will look after the coronavirus pandemic

‘Cities are at the center of this pandemic, as they have been during so many plagues in history. The virus originated in a crowded city in central China. It spread between cities and has taken the most lives in cities. New York has become the world’s saddest, most dismal viral hotspot...

‘Cities thrive on the opportunities for work and play, and on the endless variety of available goods and services. If fear of disease becomes the new normal, cities could be in for a bland and antiseptic future, perhaps even a dystopian one. But if the world’s cities find ways to adjust, as they always have in the past, their greatest era may yet lie before them.

‘To help us make sense of urban life after the pandemic, Foreign Policy asked 11 leading thinkers from around the world to weigh in with their predictions. One of the contributors is Maimunah Mohd Sharif from Penang, Malaysia.’

Read here (Foreign Policy, May 1, 2020)

Strengthening preparedness for Covid-19 in cities and urban settings

‘This document is to support local authorities, leaders and policy-makers in cities and other urban settlements in identifying effective approaches and implementing recommended actions that enhance the prevention, preparedness and readiness for COVID-19 in urban settings, to ensure a robust response and eventual recovery. It covers factors unique to cities and urban settings, considerations in urban preparedness, key areas of focus and preparing for future emergencies.’

Beyond traditional recommendations—such as multisectoral collaboration, protecting vulnerable populations, and evidence-based policy decisions—the guidance also addresses 4 focus areas in the context of COVID-19 preparedness:

1. Coordinated local plans to address unique issues, characteristics, and capacities of individual cities; 
2. Risk communication and education to promote compliance with recommended actions, using media that can effectively reach target audiences; 
3. Contextually and culturally appropriate approaches to public health, including social distancing, enhanced hygiene, and respiratory etiquette; and 
4. Adequate access to care for COVID-19 and other essential health services, including prevent services like vaccination. The document also includes an annex with more specific details, considerations, and recommendations under each focus area.

Read and download here (WHO, April 28, 2020)

The pandemic shows what cars have done to cities

Along streets suddenly devoid of traffic, pedestrians get a fresh look at all the space that motor vehicles have commandeered...

‘The single-occupancy car itself is the original social-distancing machine. Knoflacher has likened it to a virus—a pathogen that has infiltrated its host (the city) and hijacked its molecular infrastructure to create a more welcoming environment for its own replication. “Normal human social behavior,” he writes, is transformed “into the rules of road traffic regulations in which car traffic [has] advantages in relation to all other users of public space.” We have laws to ensure sufficient parking, but no laws to ensure sufficient parks. So complete is the viral takeover that when President Donald Trump and others seek to minimize the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, they equate its number of victims with the largely preventable death toll from traffic crashes—as if losing tens of thousands of Americans in that way every year were perfectly acceptable.’

Read here (The Atlantic, April 24, 2020)