Abstract from UNESCO Cities Platform, “Urban Solutions: Learning from cities responses to COVID-19”
Whilst cities are managing their immediate response to the COVID-19 pandemic, they are also looking ahead to plan and resource long-term recovery efforts. The two first e-debates discussed experiences of how cities responded to the pandemic, and how they are working to ease lockdown measures and embrace a robust recovery. Many parts of the world are still in the first or second phase of the pandemic, but that should not prevent us from looking ahead. Reflecting on cities’ experiences thus far, as well as on lessons learnt from cities that have advanced further in the response cycle, will bring forward ideas of how cities can remain at the forefront of response and innovation, how they can best cater to the needs of their citizens across economic, social and cultural dimensions.
This offers an opportunity to transform cities in meaningful ways to build resilience and sustainability for the looming climate crisis and other emergencies. Global hazards and challenges are multiple. Cities across the world tend to be well aware of the risks they face, be it from rising sea levels, increasingly frequent and intense disasters, or rapid population growth. What are some of those key lessons learnt thus far and how can they be addressed? Will cities be better prepared in the future?
Numerous initiatives in the past years have tried to rethink city living. Being a pandemic, COVID-19 has affected the entire world, and thus led a much broader group of experts, professionals and innovators to jointly raise questions and take this as an opportunity to rethink how the world’s population can live better, more safely, harmoniously and more sustainably. How to move beyond the new normal by ‘not merely rebuilding but rethinking’? Are we moving towards ‘cities of tomorrow’ and what will they look like?
This challenge is particularly big for cities, not just because this is where most people live, but also because the way in which cities work today raises questions in face of a global crisis. The crisis may provide citizens and planners with an opportunity to rethink drastically, from the ground up, the way we live, consume, produce and travel. Cities are where everything and everyone connects, which makes cities thrilling and vibrant, but also vulnerable. People living in cities are more dependent on public and private services for transportation, food, and enjoying open spaces. COVID-19 has shown that the urban interconnectedness can be a vulnerability, where inadequate access or interruption of services leave them vulnerable. At the same time, neighbourhood initiatives that sprung up around the world have also shown that there is also another way to live together in cities. What are some of the successful initiatives that merit being continued into the future and how can this be sustained beyond the pandemic? Which particular urban challenges need to be addressed in order to provide sustainable and healthy living solutions for citizens in the long run?
A key aspect of this is the need to make cities more inclusive. The UN has announced that the impact of COVID-19 will be the highest in poor and densely populated urban areas, especially for the one billion people living in informal settlement and slums. Images of low-paid migrant workers struggling to get home amidst lockdown will surely return once these people need to find ways and means to return to their places of work. Once the long-term recovery phase begins, a rethinking of urban living should not just be a matter of design and architecture, but also one that addresses these structural inequalities through policies and tangible actions. How can policies in various sectors make cities more inclusive and reduce these vulnerabilities? Which projects are being devised to address this?
But inclusivity is about more than the most vulnerable. It also relies on broad participation. Young people in particular can and should play a key role in shaping the city of tomorrow. After all, it will be them who will build and live in them. During the response to COVID-19, cities but also various entrepreneurs and other urban actors, devised ways to ensure their participation. What can be learned from that and how can a broad variety of citizens participate in thinking and shaping new initiatives? What efforts are. there to foster creativity, innovation and support start-ups?
This work should be guided by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as by other global frameworks like the Paris Climate Agreement. In particular, SDG Goal 11 ‘Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’ should be highlighted further to guide our collective response to the contemporary development challenges, providing a general urban roadmap that crosses sectors and development priorities.
The panel discussed how the current crisis can be seen as an opportunity to rethink the way we live in cities, the symbiosis between cities and their inhabitants, the role of physical and virtual urban public spaces, and thus to design the cities of tomorrow. It considered how cities can rethink their urban policies to strengthen their risk preparedness and response capacity, making themselves smarter, greener, more inclusive and resilient.
Questions for Reflections
- How to make cities more inclusive and more sustainable based on the COVID-19 experience?
- How to balance the use of big data while respecting individual freedoms? What ethical frameworks could be leveraged?
- How to conduct on-the-ground research to build an evidence base of socioeconomic data to inform policies?
- How to move beyond the new normal by ‘not rebuilding but rethinking’? How to foster collective ambition and imagination to create the cities of tomorrow?
- What is the role of different economic and social groups, particularly youth and women, in this common objective of creating the cities of tomorrow?
- How can the SDG framework help guide thinking about cities post-pandemic? How to enhance Voluntary Local Reviews as an effective tool to push forward sustainable development at the local level?
- What are some of the 21st century competencies and skills that city dwellers need to develop to promote solidarity and cooperation beyond the COVID-19 crisis?
- How to enhance cities’ capacities as laboratories of innovation, offering adequate grounds for business, creativity, research, policy testing, etc.?
- How could local city measures and initiatives influence national and regional levels to have a broader impact?
- How to reinforce information literacy coupled with intercultural competencies to build resilience against so-called ‘fake news’ given the growing role of social media and the importance of correct information at a time of crisis?
Mr. Riel Miller, Head of Futures Literacy, UNESCO, moderator introduced the debate and pinpointed how the current crisis can be seen as an opportunity to rethink the way people live in cities, the symbiosis between cities and their inhabitants, the role of physical and virtual urban public spaces, and thus to design the cities of tomorrow.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE PANEL: GENERAL SUMMARY
Mr. Sameh Wahba, Global Director, Urban, Disaster, Risk Management, Resilience and Land Global Practice, World Bank, took the viewpoint of how the existing structure of cities is not the most beneficial and the pandemic is highlighting all its cracks and weaknesses. “It’s the way density is managed and mismanaged and turns into overcrowding,” notably when it comes to “places that lack public infrastructure especially for water and sanitation such as in slums…informal settlements.” In the future, he foresees cities with much wider spaces and a higher investment in digital infrastructure to deal with future emergencies and responses. As a conclusion, Mr Wahba expressed his opinion on the different amenities that will attract us to the city, namely “the inclusion, the culture, the diversity.”
Ms. Soo-Jin Kim, Deputy Head of the City Division, Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), said we are “shifting from the logic of mobility to accessibility.” For Ms. Kim, how we choose to get out of the pandemic depends solely on us. There is a need to adapt to a more circular model to reduce waste and change our consumption patterns, as the crisis has shown us that current practices are not sustainable. She further notes that, “policy choices we make today to exit this crisis will shape the cities of tomorrow for decades to come.”
Mr. Carlos Moreno, Scientific Director of the eTi Chair (Entrepreneurship–Territory– Innovation), Panthéon Sorbonne University – IAE, spoke about his concept of the 15- minute city. As we build new city infrastructure going forward, we have to think of proximity as the new way of life. He stated, “the point is not to have more cities, it’s to have happy citizens, to have a happy life.”
Mr. Jean-Michel Wilmotte, architect, urban planner and designer, took to explaining why public spaces will have to be transformed in any future design concerning cities. Due to the COVID-19 crisis, there is a need to create places in cities where we can store beds, materials and/or health equipment to be able to be better prepared for the future. He noted that as we are living in an exceptional time, which calls for exceptional measures.
Mr. Benedetto Zacchiroli, Advisor to the Italian National Office against Racism (UNAR), President of the Global Steering Committee of ICCAR and President of ECCAR, brought the civil society aspect to the conversation. “What we called normality cannot be synonymous with social justice,” he observed as he called for building together a common ground for human rights. He explained that policymakers and others alike cannot wait for citizens to come to them. They have to reach out to their citizens. He concluded by stating that “[we need to] stress that people’s realities are really different…we cannot think about not changing.”
Another educator, Ms. Judith James, Head of Strategic Regional Collaboration, Swansea University, reminded us that we need to have “greater tolerance of differences” if we want to stop inequalities from rising. She noted that there is a need “not to increase the gap between the rich and poor—that’s the real social distancing. We have the potential to create an inclusive future. Our future lies in understanding the needs of people.” Coming from a city that has focused on teaching entrepreneurship to the younger generation, Swansea stressed that without innovation and progress, the city cannot collectively move forward.
Ms. Wevyn Muganda, Founder of Beyond the Lines (UNDP 16×16 initiative), brought the youth perspective to the table. She called for a “prioritizing of young people at the decision-making level and across other sectors so that the decisions are not made for youth but made with youth.” Any sustainable city in the future will have to reconcile the treatment of its inhabitants and must look at how housing, access to health and employment is shaping its population. In order to be truly inclusive, she observes, “human rights is key in the development and sustainability of any city.”
In summary, the debate highlighted how every decision affects people very differently. As no one in the world was prepared for this pandemic, it has created tremendous vulnerability, but has also shown us how to be more interconnected through digital means, urban spaces and opportunities. At the core of re-imagining any city or re-inventing any model, cities must come to grips with the end of the old normality and embrace the new normal and beyond—one that will have to be more open both literally and metaphorically, more local and, most importantly, more accessible, to create a sustainable urban environment for all.