Will COVID-19 change how cities are planned?

Can we use urban planning to address COVID-19

COVID-19 could prompt new approaches to urban design in the Asia Pacific region — the world’s most densely populated cities.

The coronavirus pandemic sweeping across the planet has forced city authorities and planners to more seriously consider factors such as the population density, technology, food security and inadequate housing.

As I have previously talked about in my articles, there will probably be consideration of desirable population density levels, a greater utilisation of social media and smart data to track health trends etc… and many cities will probably start to think about their food security more closely. Countries such as China, South Korea and Singapore are now using robots, drones and big data to track the outbreak, disinfect hospitals and deliver supplies in response to the pandemic.

Coronavirus is a zoonotic disease — a disease that passes from animals to humans. And the rapid pace of deforestation and urbanisation are the major factors in the spread of the coronavirus in both Europe and Asia Pacific regions. In this case, coronavirus may lead to new changes in city planning. To some extent, we should also start to think about the value of the public realm and public space in combating the coronavirus.

For example, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003, which hit cities such as Hong Kong and Singapore, making Hong Kong and Singapore to upgrade its medical infrastructure and create systems to tackle the disease.

Decentralisation of services and reducing density are ways to combat disease spread, though this is contrary to sustainable transport and climate change related goals.

Also, very dense cities like Hong Kong has contained the virus better than largely rural areas like Lombardy and Veneto in Italy. Ultimately, governance dimensions are more important than planning or design approaches.

According to the United Nations, there are more than two thirds of the global population is forecast to live in urban areas by 2050, which is approximately 56% of the population today.

With cities battling worsening climate change effects, planners also have to balance competing demands for land.

In Hong Kong, some public housing blocks were requisitioned for quarantine facilities, while in Italy authorities in Genoa are converting a ferry to a hospital boat.

Planners may consider leaving small parcels of strategic urban land available, in case temporary medical facilities or housing need to be set up.

Perhaps more importantly, planners will have to consider the impact of widening wealth inequality, with millions of homeless people and those living in slums at greater risk of contracting the disease.

With that said, achieving a longer-term changes in urban planning will depend on improving the way we see, understand and address health and living conditions in informal settlements.

The future still remains uncertain, and as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread, more questions will undoubtedly arise. Seemingly overnight, our way of life has changed as hospitals overflow, cities go on lockdown and working from home becomes more prevalent. Planners should therefore think about how they will manifest through design and create larger societal implications.

The arise of digital infrastructure

There’s also one more extra thing I would like to add is the digital response — which didn’t exist at all at the time of most of our historic parallels. It existed a bit during Ebola using digital infrastructure to tackle pandemics, but not in the same size as the coronavirus. Major services with smartphone apps can tell you who is sick in your neighbourhood, and people are making daily decisions based on the whole digital infrastructure. I come from an hour from the “red zone” in London, and family and friends make a lot of decisions based on digital connectivity information.

Modern planning and civil engineering were born out of the mid-19th century development of sanitation in response to the spread of malaria and cholera in cities. Do you think digital infrastructure might be our new approaches to urban design from the coronavirus?