“Many nations across the Asia-Pacific have implemented guidelines for social distancing and introduced lockdowns to control COVID-19. However, now many leaders face the question of how they will be able to relieve their communities of the protective constraints in place. Who decides when safe is ‘safe enough’, or what level of residual risk is acceptable? Getting this wrong is something no leader can afford. By applying a community-based incremental approach to the easing of lockdowns, tailored to demographic and social stratifications of risk, much of the guesswork can be eliminated.”
Category: Integrated urban development
Cities for Global Health
As of 2 April, 1 p.m., 43 cities shared already 144 initiatives – worth browsing it! And share your own!
The global crisis generated by the COVID-19 outbreak is pushing cities of all shapes to give immediate answers to an emergency that is seriously threatening not only citizens’ health, but the social cohesion, the economy and the infrastructures of our territories.
While the virus spreads regardless of administrative boundaries, territorial scales or weather conditions, affecting millions of individuals simultaneously in different ways, it drives us to overcome management barriers. In metropolitan spaces, the collaboration of central cities and peripheries can make a huge difference to ensure that quality of life is not further threatened under scenarios of fragility and that no one is left behind.
Collaboration between administrations of different levels is key to deal with this crisis. Seeking to foster collective responses and facilitate the access of decision-makers to first-hand experiences about how urban areas across the globe can deal with situations alike, local and regional governments of all sizes from across the globe are invited to share:
Initiatives (e.g. plans, strategies, policies) designed specifically as a reaction to the COVID-19 outbreak
Initiatives designed to face other health emergencies such as sanitary crisis or epidemics.
COVID-19 in informal urban settlements
“Most of the information about COVID-19 and who is at risk is based on data from middle and high income contexts. Many of the recommendations (to wash hands, self-isolate and physically distance) assume basic living conditions and access to essential services (e.g. water, space etc). […] Many of these strategies will not be possible to the same degree in low and middle income countries (LMICs), and especially not in urban informal settlements. With 1 billion people living in informal settlements, there is an urgent need to consider feasibility and develop locally appropriate approaches. This brief sets out key considerations for protecting informal urban settlements from the spread and impacts of COVID-19 and discusses what is known about vulnerabilities and how to support local action.”
Public Health Protection and Epidemic Control at Municipal Level
What kind of measures are necessary to sustainably protect citizens from infectious diseases and epidemics? How have German municipalities organised their response model? And what is the situation like in other cities and regions around the world? Moreover, what can be done to strengthen local health systems? These questions were at the heart of the dialogue event ‘Public Health Protection and Epidemic Control at Municipal Level’.
In cooperation with the City of Frankfurt’s Public Health Department, the international urban networking platform Connective Cities invited German and international stakeholders from Brazil, Jordan and Liberia to exchange their experience and showcase their good practices in Frankfurt from 25 to 27 November. This event attracted medical doctors and staff from municipalities, state governments and ministries as well as experts from the field of infectious disease control and crisis management.
The primary objective of this event was to map out practicable prevention strategies and to collectively identify project ideas for controlling and responding to biological hazards
Much of this is more relevant today than ever.
Further information and impressions of the event in the short documentation, in the detailed report and in the video (on YouTube)
The impact of COVID-19 in informal settlements – are we paying enough attention?
As we in the global North brace ourselves for the coronavirus pandemic we are being told to wash our hands (for 20 seconds!) and self-isolate if sick. But what if you cannot do either of those things? One billion people live in slums or informal settlements where water for basic needs is in short supply – let alone 20 seconds worth – and where space is constrained and rooms are often shared. Yet discussion about vulnerability in these contexts has been startlingly absent.
A recent IIED blog raised the issue of poor infrastructure in ‘slums’ and informal settlements and rightly concluded that an overhaul of urban planning and development is needed to bring about improved infrastructure and public health. But in the meantime, we need to consider how COVID-19 could impact people living in densely populated and unsanitary environments, and what could mitigate the worst of these impacts. This is challenging as the health and social needs of these populations are often invisible.
So what are the health experiences, challenges and priorities of people in informal settlements? How do residents organise to address existing health threats? And how does this provide a basis for a COVID-19 response? These are the questions IDS and SLURC have been exploring as part of an ESRC research project on post-Ebola urban health in Sierra Leone, and also in a new GCRF funded hub on Accountability for Informal Urban Equity – ARISE.
Some of the insights from this research and some potential lessons for COVID-19.
How Are Cities Dealing With The COVID-19 Outbreak?
More than half the world’s population live in urban areas. Cities are hubs for transnational businesses and traffic movements. When infectious disease outbreaks occur, cities accelerate the spread and transmission of the disease through increased human contact. But cities also play a central role in preparing for, mitigating and adapting to pandemics. Those that are open, transparent, collaborative and adopt comprehensive responses are better equipped to manage pandemics than those that are not. This article explores why cities like Taipei and Singapore seemed better prepared to deal with the current COVID-19 outbreak and why it is important to learn from past pandemics.
The Covid-19 pandemic from an urban planning perspective
From an urban planning perspective, epidemics historically have always left their traces in our cities. Now COVID-19 joins a long list of infectious diseases – such as the Spanish flu of 1918 in New York and Mexico City or the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014.
CityLab has talked to Michele Acuto, Professor of Global Urban Politics at the University of Melbourne, about the intersections of urban planning and public health in the age of digitalization and globalization.
Sustainable Urban Transport in Latin America
As the central importance of mobility to issues such as equity, climate impact and health is increasingly recognised, sustainable urban transport is becoming ever more relevant throughout the world. In Latin America and the Caribbean in particular, there are multiple urban mobility challenges to be addressed, requiring implementation of effective policies and innovative ideas. This publication will explore challenges and opportunities specific to the Latin American context, with the aim of providing guidance on how to improve mobility conditions for the region’s urban residents and contribute to sustainability targets.
Climate Resilience and Urban Development
Many cities in the Latin American region have been pioneers in the implementation of environmental measures and policies, as well as in resilience building and adaptation of their territories to the incre- asing effects of climate change. Planning for the future is key for the well-being of our communities, and we need to continue working with and for them in order to mitigate and adapt to the impact that climate change will continue to have on our territories in the coming decades.
This peer-learning note summarizes good practices of Latin American cities with a focus on four different thematic areas: risk assessment, comprehensive planning, finance, and citizen engagement. The practices were discussed during our ConnectiveCities peer-learning event hosted by the city of Niteroi, Brazil between November 26-28, 2019.
More information:
• Read the Peer Learning Note 26 about Climate Resilience and Urban Development in English, Spanish, or Portuguese.
• Short documentation with all presentations and pictures of the events
Handbook for Gender-Inclusive Urban Planning and Design 2020
Urban planning and design shape the environment around us – and that environment, in turn, shapes how we live, work, play, move, and rest.
Cities have historically been planned and designed for men and by men. They tend to reflect traditional gender roles and gendered division of labor. In general, cities work better for heterosexual, able-bodied, cisgender men than they do for women, girls, sexual and gender minorities, and people with disabilities.
The Handbook for Gender-Inclusive Urban Planning and Design seeks to respond to these urgent questions: how might we design and plan cities that work well for everyone? What would such a city look like, and how would we go about creating it? By showing why to incorporate gender inclusion into urban planning and design it sets out practical approaches, activities, and design guidelines that show how to do this.