Pandemics force us to rethink the future of cities

Epidemiologists have warned about new and more frequent emerging diseases since World War II.

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In September 2019, the World Health Organization published the first annual report of the Global Reserve Monitoring Committee, prepared to pressure policymakers to mitigate against health threats. ..

Presciently title World at stakeThe report warned of an increasing threat from “an epidemic or pandemic that not only causes life loss, but also disrupts the economy and disrupts society.”

During the last few decades, public health experts have tightened plans for a new unknown disease X pandemic, investigating potential health and economic implications, and war game response and control strategies. I am.

(According to the WHO, Disease X represents the knowledge that pathogens that are not currently known to cause human disease can cause serious international epidemics).

Outbreaks of avian influenza, Ebola, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) have all come to be regarded as major influenza rehearsals.

At the time, the epidemics led to a surge of interest and funding from policy makers, but as the emergency slumped and the fear subsided, the government and citizens returned to business as usual.

Historian Frank Snowden said, “Following the challenges of each microbe, enthusiastic activity continues at all levels, both internationally and domestically.

Rethinking the megacity

Even if an effective vaccine could be developed to control COVID-19, the threat of future epidemics, including X disease, would not disappear.

Therefore, coronaviruses should encourage policy makers to reconsider the underlying factors that contributed to their rapid transmission, such as the structure of cities and megacities and their impact on public health.

Coronaviruses expose a range of vulnerabilities, including urbanization, overcrowding, poverty, uneven health services, public transport, and aviation, demanding deeper rethinking.

Coronavirus should serve as a warning. Future infectious diseases, including X disease, may be more contagious and/or deadly.

Very dense and hyper-connected cities are vulnerable or fragile due to the familiar terminology used by risk managers and emergency planners. The challenge is to re-imagine them and re-engineer them to make them more resilient, while maintaining financial success and attractive features to the population.

Cities and entire nations have been exposed to the impact of being ranked among the largest social and economic turmoil of the century, which places intellectual, social, and policy space for important reconsideration. To create.

Policy tradeoffs

Megacities and other major cities are some of the most economically successful regions of the modern economy, a major driver of prosperity, and some have limited spillover effects in neighboring areas.

Cities have very high per capita output, high incomes, create an imbalanced share of innovation, and are more energy efficient than urban and rural areas.

London’s per capita economic output in 2017 was 77% above the national average, more than double that of most other parts of the UK, according to data from the UK Bureau of Statistics.

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At the same time, London’s energy consumption was well below average. This is mainly due to the high reliance on public transport such as buses and suburbs and subways. London’s transportation energy consumption was about 3100 kilowatt hours per person in 2017, less than half the energy consumption used in the neighborhoods of the South East (7700 kWh) and East England (8100 kWh).

London’s transportation has become faster and more efficient than any other region, with per capita energy usage at 13% in the southeast between 2007 and 2017 and only 7% in eastern England. Against, it decreased by 26%.

For urban enthusiasts and climate change activists, high-density cities are a success story, reducing energy intensity and reducing carbon emissions while creating prosperity.

But the downside to its success is the growing congestion of homes, workplaces, social areas, and public transport.

The key question is whether cities, especially megacities, can be redesigned to reduce the chances of overcrowding and transmission, while maintaining much of their productivity and energy efficiency.

Can we reduce transmission risks without overcrowding the city while maintaining productivity and energy efficiency benefits? By changing land use, spatial planning, density management, or by changing behavior or how existing assets are used. Can the city be redesigned? Can dense, interconnected cities be better protected through enhanced disease surveillance and other public health measures?

Finally, is there a case where you want to spread more economic activity and population, or at least new growth, from megacities and other major cities to secondary cities and smaller urban areas?

Inertia v destruction

Rebuilding a city involves severe trade-offs between policy makers, business leaders, real estate investors, and private citizens.

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How much a city changes under the influence of coronaviruses and in anticipation of future epidemics depends on the balance of the two forces of inertia and rupture.

Strong vested interests are already driving the pre-epilemic recovery of residential accommodation, commercial real estate, core work patterns, commuting and transportation distribution.

At the same time, cities and entire nations are under the shock of being ranked among the largest social and economic turmoil of the century, which is an important rethinking of intellectual, social, and policy. Creating a space.

The number of changing and non-changing cities depends on how shocks overcome inertia.

Reuters