Urbanization is one of the leading global trends of the 21st century that has a significant impact on health. Today around 55% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to be increase of 68% by 2050. As most future urban growth will take place in developing cities, the world today has a unique opportunity to guide urbanization and other major urban development trends in a way which protects and promotes health. These include several across Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Pacific Island States, and Guyana in Latin America.
COVID-19 has changed the face of cities, a
huge economic shock and recast urban life globally. Starting with China, a
majority of countries has adopted some version of a lockdown with all social
activity. In India, the lockdown started across the country on March 24 and is
still ongoing. The disease’s worst effects are closely linked with urban areas,
where the death rates tend to be higher because of a complex combination of
factors, including population density, national and international connectivity
and public health response. In turn, cities have become the major theatres of
the crisis for a once-in-a-century test to global resilience. Thus the global
health governance has far struggled to face up to the urban character of
the pandemic.
Figure 1. A Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) global Event to
showcase the impact of COVID-19 on Urban Food Systems. Image credited to FAO.
The United Nations (UN) Secretary General
recently called for a better appreciation of how COVID-19 is unfolding in ‘an
urban world’ if we are to rebuild more sustainably [1]. The UN has already stressed that approximately 95% of
COVID-19 cases have taken place in urban settlements, with over 1,500 cities
affected worldwide [2]. For example, in the United Kingdom (UK)
and the United States of America (USA), major urban areas have higher death
rates than other types of settlement, and city size has also been found to play
an important part in determining infection rates.
The pandemic spread fast across the world and
continues to circulate because of the global system of human settlements. It
now reaches deep into rural and peri-urban realities and feeds on national and
international connections that go beyond the links between major global cities -
with planetary ramifications [3]. With
rates of urbanization predicting an increase of the world’s urban population to
six billion by 2045, this is not just an immediate urban challenge but a
long-term global concern. The urgency to ‘see like a city’ is clear. The
transformation of mobility has been dramatic. Seeing recovery efforts ‘like a
city’ could achieve a fundamental restructuring of the world’s urban economies commuting
and transportation. These are an intersectional terrain where climate emergency
politics, infrastructure investment and health meet and where meaningful joint
action can be initiated immediately.
M. Acuto et al., an urban lens on COVID-19 offers at least four advantages reported in Nature Sustainability on 16th September 2020 [4].
- First, it recognizes the global role of
‘extended urbanization’ and its interplay with planetary health [5]. The stretching
of our urbanized life across shared ecologies is at the basis of both our
changing climate and the acceleration of zoonotic events like COVID-19, whilst
exacerbating urban divides between the core and periphery of our globally
linked cities.
- Second, it values learnings that emerge
from moments of crisis and lessons that surface from mundane innovations in the
midst of disruptions. COVID-19 lockdowns are a unique ‘forced experimentation’
we cannot underestimate [6]. An urban lens can allow us to leverage
this moment for more inclusive and sustainable service delivery in cities.
- Third, it values the active role played by citizens and urban communities in
crisis response, often in collaboration with powerful philanthropic and private
sector actors. Community-based initiatives cannot replace the welfare
obligations of the state but tend to be more attuned to the needs and the
demands of the most vulnerable [7].
- Fourth, it reminds us that cities are not just local governments but also their residents. The surge of community solidarity and mutual aid funds that has accompanied the spread of the virus asks us to appreciate the value of local interventions and underscores the potential to reconstitute urban lives and relationships according to new more inclusive scripts. When seen through an urban lens, these examples demonstrate that social justice, public health and environmental agendas are mutually reinforcing parts of an integrative whole and attention to livelihoods is as critical as that to health.
What are the questions comes in our mind about urban life during COVID-19
However, less (if anything at all) is known
about how low-income families living in urban shanty towns are faring due to
the crisis. What has been the impact of the shutdown on their earnings and
incomes? While the governments have responded with various measures to mitigate
economic hardships, such as food transfers or camps, and cash injections
directly into bank accounts, how effective have these policy responses been in
reaching the low-income households in urban clusters?
A window of urban opportunities
The World Health Organization, for instance, still does not have a major ‘cities’ unit and has often sidelined urban health in favour of state-centric conversations. Cities should also make use of the opportunity presented by having a single authority under a city mayor who is empowered to take cross-sectoral decisions, for example on urban planning, transportation systems, purchasing, supply of energy, water and sanitation, and waste management. Strategic urban planning will be the key to creating supportive and enabling environments for health, making sure that health and equity considerations are integrated throughout the planning process, investments, and policy decisions at the local level.
Our SNB Team recommended this research article to help the reader to know and aware about COVID-19 in the urban world and also the low-income families living in urban shanty towns are faring due to this crisis.
References
- Policy Brief: COVID-19 in an Urban World
(United Nations, 2020); https://go.nature.com/335VRRS.
- N. Bhalla, Coronavirus will travel
‘incredibly fast’ in Africa’s slums, U.N. cities chief warns. Reuters (24 April
2020); https://go.nature.com/338tuCj.
- N. Brenner, Public Cult. 25, 85 (2013).
- M. Acuto, et al., Nature Sustainability https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-00620-3.
- C. Connolly, et al., Urban Stud. https://doi.org/10.1 177%2F0042098020910873 (2020).
- M. Acuto, One Earth 2, 317 (2020).
- M. Fallah, et al. Ann. Intern. Med. 164, 367 (2016).
Dr. A. S. Ganeshraja
Assistant Professor
National College, Tiruchirappalli
Tamil Nadu, India
Editors
Dr. S. Chandrasekar
Dr. K. Rajkumar
Reviewers
Dr. Y. Sasikumar
Dr. K. Vaithinathan
Dr. S. Thirumurugan
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