Pandemics and the city (II): Covid-19, from the urban to the social fabric of cities – 05/01/2021
Discussions on how to transform the living environment in order to promote healthier lifestyles have usually orbited around chronic diseases, while infectious diseases were left unconsidered. This has recently changed since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic as urban areas have become hubs of infections and played a central role in the rapid spread of the virus. In fact, the role of the city in the pandemics has added new elements to long-lasting debates on urban design, contrasting the gains and losses in city compactness and urban sprawl. In addition, not everyone in the urban space is affected in the same way by the spread of the virus: sociospatial inequalities in the cities imply that different groups are unequally exposed to infections.
This week’s ID’s recommended reads aim at presenting evidence on the urban and social factors determining the gravity of Covid-19 and other airborne infectious diseases in cities: a study comparing the role of urban density to the role of city connectedness; an article assessing the role of built and environmental factors; a study presenting a conceptual framework on residential segregation and the epidemiology of tuberculosis; and a commentary taking Toronto (Canada) and Milan (Italy) as departure point to point to the urban and social periphery as the Covid-19 epicentre.
Pandemics and the city (I): After Covid-19, the cities of the future – 02/12/2020
“Hygiene and moral health depend on the layout of the cities. Without hygiene and moral health, the social cell becomes atrophied”, Le Corbusier, The City of Tomorrow and its Planning, 1928.
Throughout History, pandemics have shaped urban configurations. Waterborne and vector-borne infectious diseases, such as cholera and yellow fever, fostered the modernization and renovation of the sewerage systems and sanitation measures in many cities from the 1850s onwards. Airborne infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis have, however, spread easily in cities as of the 19th Century, affecting lower-class groups due to worse living conditions such as overcrowding and insufficient indoor ventilation. Despite initiatives in the 20th Century such as the Garden City movement aimed at increasing green and blue spaces in cities, or from Modernist architecture to create open, light and fair housing for all social strata, the containment measures for these diseases are still approached clinically.
The Covid-19 crisis now forces us to rethink urban planning for the ‘post-pandemic city’. Dense city centres have a major role in the spread of the virus. As they represent hubs of economic activity, interactions in cities are boosted. The pandemics could change the way people interact and move in urban areas. In this recent Financial Times article, several experts foretell a post-pandemic scenario including city reconfiguration with a key role for local governments, which could hopefully lead to more liveable cities with greater space for cultural and outdoor recreational activities.
This week’s ID’s recommended reads: a report on how the current urbanisation and growth models are unsustainable and help to promote infectious disease transmission, an overview on proposed built environment interventions to allow social distancing while promoting well-being, and a critical review of emerging questions on the future of public spaces.
The multidimensional health impact of COVID-19 – 10/11/2020
The global outbreak of COVID-19 entails large societal and public health challenges. The health impact of the pandemic is not limited to the direct consequences of COVID-19 illness and death: the pressure on health systems and the unprecedented containment policy measures may cause indirect health impacts on multiple dimensions.
Although the overall impact of the COVID-19 crisis on population health can only be fully evaluated with the wisdom of hindsight, knowledge of the short-term and mid-term developments per health dimension is crucial for the further management of the pandemic. The following recommended reads provide valuable insights per health dimension and underline the importance of a multidimensional health perspective.
Contextualizing outbreaks of COVID-19 in Belgium: A news media analysis – 13/10/2020
When the spread of the new coronavirus becomes a global pandemic in the spring of 2020, Belgium is one of the most affected countries in the world. The COVID-19 virus spreads throughout the country since early March, but some areas are worse off than others. Official investigations were initiated by the health authorities, but to date no results have been divulged. The question remains: what cause the local outbreak of COVID-19 in Belgium. This investigation will review all hypothesis published in Belgian news articles between the outbreak and the end of the confinement period in order to identify and describe potential routes of transmission for the major outbreaks of COVID-19 in Belgium.
The value of public green spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic – 06/10/2020
When on 30 January 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 an international public health emergency, many countries implemented policy measures reducing personal contact in order to ‘flatten the curve’. Social distancing became the norm in public space and restrictions on the use of public spaces were imposed in many countries around the globe in order to protect public health. These policy measures resulted in a shrinkage of both our physical and social world, thereby possibly collaterally damaging the physical and mental health of a substantial proportion of the population, particularly those in urban settings, and resulting in another threat for public health.
Public green spaces might partially counterbalance these negative health outcomes since they offer unique places to meet others, to break through isolations, to move, play and relax at a safe distance. The physical and even more the mental benefits of nature interaction and the ecosystem services provided by nature are nowadays well-established in the literature.
This weeks’ recommended reads highlight the value of public green spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic. The reads also address the topic of green justice and formulate suggestions for urban green space management and keeping parks and green spaces accessible during pandemics.
Childbearing desirability during the COVID-19 pandemic – 25/09/2020
At the very point governments introduced confinement measures to combat COVID-19 spread, newspapers jumped in with speculation about consequences for family formation and dissolution with titles such as “What’s it gonna to be after the coronacrisis: a real babyboom or a wave of divorce?”, and more recent additions claiming that filing for divorce is on the rise. The reasoning: physical intimacy will either increase, or the very opposite, while quite literally confined to one another.
This week’s post shows how academics are seeking to go beyond studying direct and indirect health effects of COVID-19 and policy measures, but also how family dynamics are affected. Readings include: a perspective on how the pandemic might affect human fertility in light of earlier crises, and a survey-study from Italy that is among the first to focus on the desirability of parenthood during this time, and an essay propagating a life course approach to future COVID-19 research that will help us understand long-term effects.