Cities and COVID-19: navigating the new normal

Abstract

Non-technical summary Urban density is erroneously regarded as the main factor in the spread of COVID-19 in cities. A review of extant literature and findings from our case study of Karachi, Pakistan indicate that inequalities in income, healthcare, and living conditions play a key role in the spread of contagions along with government responsiveness to the pandemic. Moving forward, urban policies need to address these inequalities through changes in housing policies and decentralized governance systems. Cities must adapt to sustainable modes of travel, reduce digital inequalities, and encourage people friendly urban planning to become resilient in the face of pandemics. Technical summary COVID-19 has changed how urban residents relate to their cities. Urban centers have become epicenters of disease, which has raised questions about the long-term sustainability of high-density settlements and public transport usage. However, the spread of COVID-19 in cities is incorrectly attributed to urban density. Using the case study of Karachi, Pakistan, we find that inequality of income, healthcare, and living conditions is a major contributing factor to the spread of COVID-19. Data on positive COVID-19 cases, density, and socioeconomic status were obtained at the Union Council level from administrative districts of Karachi, Pakistan between March 2020, and July 2020. Despite low population densities, low-to-middle income neighborhoods in Karachi had a higher proportion of positive cases. Further, the experience of dense cities such as Hanoi in Vietnam and New York in the US differs regarding the spread of COVID-19. Hence, the government's response to the pandemic is also a major factor in containing the outbreak. Our findings suggest that a crisis in a city is exacerbated by its inability to take advantage of its density, inequality in the distribution of resources, lack of inclusiveness, and centralized governance mechanisms that make it difficult to respond quickly to situations. Thus, urban planning scholarship and practice should take an interdisciplinary approach to make cities equitable, inclusive, and adaptive. Social media summary Cities in the developing world have an opportunity for more resilient renewal in the post-COVID world.

From Urban-Scape to Human-Scape: COVID-19 Trends That will Shape Future City Centres

“…There was a renewed recognition of the importance of the urban-scape to provide social experiences [23], infrastructure, and spaces to support physical and mental health [24,25], flexible and safe transport modes [26], and access to digital infrastructure [27,28] as part of basic human rights for urban living and enhanced liveability. A new definition of essential tasks [29], the importance of transportation for global and geographically remote cities such as Sydney [30], changing travel patterns [30], and the decentralisation of the urban centres driven by the drastic change in user-values and user-needs [31,32] further challenged the contemporary city centres. Limited mobility, remote working, and prioritising the health agenda became the new normal within the urban-scape, turning planning theories and our understanding of the morphology of cities upside down [20].…”

Can we save the downtown? Examining pandemic recovery trajectories across 62 North American cities

“…Berube & Byerly-Duke (2022) observed that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the labor market has simultaneously improved and declined in various cities, but noted that the "superstar" metro areas such as New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Washington DC were on the slower end of recovery, while more affordable areas such as Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Raleigh-Durham, and Salt Lake City experienced a stronger labor market. Khan et al (2021) notes that urban density and public transit were often erroneously associated with the spread of COVID-19, causing residents to flee denser urban areas at the onset of the pandemic. The aforementioned trends suggest that the decline in office traffic in downtown areas as well as its varying effects in different cities is likely to outlast the COVID-19 pandemic, and has led to calls to reinvent downtown districts as "Central Connectivity Districts" (Florida, 2022), or to convert hollowed offices to mixed-use and recreational districts (Loh & Kim, 2021).…”

Robust and Fragile Determinants of the Severity of Covid-19 in Developing and Developed Countries: A Comparative Analysis

“…McFarlane (2021) examines the effect of urban density on the spread of Covid-19, arguing that density was conducive to the spread of the virus initially, but as the pandemic progressed, a "density-as-pathology" belief gave way to a more nuanced geographical understanding of the urban dimensions of the crisis, focusing on connections, spatial conditions, domestic overcrowding and poverty. Khan et al (2021) argue that urban density is erroneously regarded as the main factor in the spread of Covid-19 in cities, suggesting instead that the culprits include income inequality, provision of healthcare, living conditions and government responsiveness play a key role in the spread of contagion. On the other hand, Moosa and Khatatbeh (2021a) find that the infection rate depends on urban density rather than the overall population density, and that the mortality rate depends on the age structure of the population and population density rather than urban density.…”