Column: Coronavirus is the dark side of the world interconnected city of Kemp

LONDON—Like the previous pandemic, the coronavirus is a dark side of a more productive, urbanized, interconnected and increasingly prosperous world.

Nevertheless, urbanization continues despite all the problems it poses, such as pollution, illness, and high living costs.

Now, some commentators are beginning to wonder if the coronavirus and the lockdowns adopted to control it will make a huge difference in transportation and lifestyle patterns.

Will mega cities become less popular? Will public transportation be redesigned? Does the supply chain get closer to home? And will international leisure travel shrink?

The answer is almost no. Cities and transportation systems are primarily shaped by social and economic impacts that force them to return to their pre-pandemic status quo.

“Crisis usually accelerates real trends in society and technology. They do not create or refute them. Don’t expect revolutionary change. Working from home will be faster here. Globalism goes nowhere. ”

Black death

Like plague, influenza, and other epidemics, coronaviruses are the most distant and fastest-moving social ailments along human and freight routes.

“In the Middle Ages, ship transport was a much more efficient and fast way of delivering goods, and could spread the disease far,” wrote historian Ol Benedictow.

In his study “The Black Death 1346-1353” in 2004, Benedictow was first identified as a port, city and commercial center where epidemics were located along the Mediterranean coast and the west coast of Europe, or on navigable rivers. Pointed out that it has invaded.

They spread to local towns, spread to the countryside with horses, carriages or pack horses, and eventually covered the entire region.

Today’s large, densely populated cities with mass transit systems, international connections, and populations with the most intensive face-to-face interactions for work, leisure, and travel are ideal for transmission Has been proven.

At the beginning of the 21st century, passenger airliners replaced ships and mass transit and private cars replaced horses and carriages.

However, the coronavirus spreads through transport systems in exactly the same way, leveraging business meetings, conferences, family gatherings, holidays, and social functions.

The flu and plague often escaped Iceland during the 1918 flu in some isolated communities of Africa and during Black Death. Therefore, areas with low population densities, low connectivity, and reliance on civilian transportation can escape the worst coronaviruses.

Unhealthy city

Great cities were often able to achieve a much higher level of per capita economic production, and thus income and wealth, than small cities and rural areas.

Their extraordinary productivity and income have made them attractive to immigrants both domestically and internationally, but they have always been an unhealthy place.

In the late Middle Ages and early modern times, London was full of soil and disease, life expectancy was significantly lower and mortality was higher than in other parts of England.

Deaths routinely exceeded births, but London’s population was still faster than other kingdoms and increased as a result of net immigration, mainly from healthy rural areas.

London’s social and economic forces were more than enough to offset squares, illness, and death in the original Big Smoke (“London Smoke”, Cavert, 2016).

London was an extreme example in modern times, but there are recent similarities in air pollution in Los Angeles, Shanghai, Beijing and New Delhi.

However, the success of large international cities, measured in terms of population growth and income growth, has shown that many residents are willing to withstand the disadvantages of moving to the second half of their lives for at least some time. is showing.

Terrible price

The densely populated and overcrowded metropolises have been very successful despite the cost of infectious diseases and other costs.

Researchers had already confirmed that London’s overcrowded and subterranean network was the main source of seasonal influenza (“London Underground Migration and Infection”, Gosce and Johansson, 2018).

Overloaded subways, buses, and trains in the city may have contributed to the early and rapid spread of the coronavirus, with a large number of passenger flights around the world making it an early gateway I made sure.

Policy makers have sought to block infections and control coronaviruses through social distances such as blockades, business closures, flight restrictions, entertainment restrictions, and traffic system usage restrictions.

This has reduced infection rates and reduced new cases and deaths, while stagnating many cities and their economies.

Currently, the challenge in London and elsewhere is how to maintain a strict social distance and control the spread of viruses while resuming urban economy and international migration.

The problem is policies that increase the average social distance, such as limiting the number of people using trains, planes and restaurants, which undermine the use of high capacity these systems need to be economically viable That is.

Trains, buses, airlines, restaurants, schools, hospitals, stores, offices are affordable as they operate at a high load factor to use the phrases airlines and transportation planners use. ..

Sudden cuts in capacity utilization make many people’s financial models impractical. In other words, it is impossible to maintain a strict social distance in the medium to long term.

inertia

Dense cities and crowded transportation systems embody a complex and interconnected set of choices, trade-offs, and affordable, energy use, and spatial planning constraints.

You can lower the seat density on the aircraft, but this will increase travel costs and limit access.

The congestion of trains and transportation may be resolved, but fares will increase and usage will be limited.

Urban economies and transportation systems are characterized by an inertia that resists change in the face of huge shocks like the coronavirus.

Some aspects of urban life, public transport, and international aviation may evolve, but most remain the same.

When the first shock disappears, the underlying social and economic forces that have shaped the city and its transportation system are reassured.

(Edited by Alexander Smith)