Zoonotic urbanisation: multispecies urbanism and the rescaling of urban epidemiology

Abstract

A focus on zoonotic urbanisation challenges existing conceptions of global urbanism. In this article I consider how a modified urban political ecology framework might help to illuminate emerging landscapes of epidemiological risk. I show how a multi-scalar perspective on urban epidemiology, including the impact of colonialism, global capitalism, and changing relations with non-human others, unsettles existing analytical approaches. I contrast resilience-oriented public health paradigms, focused on the malleability of nature, with a historically grounded set of insights into global environmental change. I suggest that the conceptual field of zoonotic urbanisation provides an analytical entry point for understanding an emergent ‘triple crisis’ spanning climate change, biodiversity loss, and global health threats.

Urban public health emergencies and the COVID-19 pandemic. Part 2: Infrastructures, urban governance and civil society

“…Certain key infrastructure facilities such as airports and hospitals were hence the focus of much initial attention given their interior conditions were seen to promote air-borne transmission among a diverse set of occupiers, but it became apparent that care and nursing homes, prisons, stadia and public venues, as well as streets and parks in general, were associated with a ‘density pathology’ that aided proliferation of the virus. This dual consideration of density and connection took on new inflection given the recognition that questions of public health need to extend to the non-human, with the socio-ecology of public health requiring acknowledgment of zoonotic transfer zones as significant sites in the aetiology of disease (Gandy, 2023). This raises the question of what the cumulative impacts of dense urban infrastructure might be for the spread and control of infectious diseases and how these can be better managed in the future.…”

“…Part 2 of the Special Issue moves from this analysis of inequalities to highlight the broader commitments of urban planning and governance towards improving population health, health equity and the well-being of citizens. Here, the pandemic has been more than a simple wake-up call, with COVID-19 requiring efforts to extend the field of urban epidemiology to encompass new spaces, processes and co-evolutionary dynamics (Gandy, 2023). As such, the pandemic has re-emphasised the importance of traditions of public health planning in cities, but also revealed how recent and ongoing infrastructure planning and urban governance practices may have exacerbated post-pandemic inequalities and vulnerabilities.…”

Urban public health emergencies and the COVID-19 pandemic. Part 1: Social and spatial inequalities in the COVID-city

“…This rapid ‘scaling up’ speaks to the fact that in the early stages of the pandemic, infection occurred through human contact with host animals, and was centred on specific loci of transmission. Here, in its early phase COVID-19 followed past outbreaks of infectious diseases associated with rural–urban migration and the importation of particular zoonotic diseases (Gandy, 2023). Yet once COVID-19 mutated into a form that was easily spread via respiratory human-to-human transmission, it quickly rippled out from local hotspots into the ‘space of flows’ that binds global urban centres together via flows of tourists and business travellers (Christidis and Christodoulou, 2020), particularly through forms of aeromobility and high-speed rail transport.…”

Indicators for agroecological transition: Food security, nutrition, well-being, promotion of a sustainable food model

“…Modern epidemiology relates pandemic processes not only to isolated microbiological elements [32], but to others closely related to the food production system. It is within this framework, that agroecology is more necessary than ever, since it addresses the agrarian systems and food transformation in a broad context that includes ecological variables that can contribute to define the principles of food safety and security.…”