Urban planning and development in America has historically lacked ideological rigor. While the United States is predominantly urban—and there now exists a growing cohort of urban planners responsible for managing this urban demographic—urban planning remains obscure for most Americans. This is problematic, given that, with few exceptions, almost everything has been planned, from the siting of residential neighborhoods and businesses to economic development and transportation. The ones who truly understand the power of planning have historically been victims of planning injustices, or sought to minimize its effects. 

Urban planning has failed to capture the popular imagination of Americans, and the federal government's treatment of urban development as a narrow issue scattered across multiple agencies and workstreams reflects this lack of prioritization. But with a new administration—one that appears more aware of urban-centric issues than most, with a number of Cabinet members serving previously as mayors or city legislators—comes new hope.

At Oxford Urbanists, we call on the Biden administration to stand up a White House Urban Policy Council to serve as a unifying sub-component of the National Economic Council, Domestic Policy Council, Climate Council and National Security Council in order to effectively coordinate all of the federal government's urban programs and assets with an overarching strategy. This working group would promote greater understanding among principals that urban development is a cross-cutting issue carrying significant weight and impact, especially in terms of meeting economic, rural development, regional planning, and foreign policy goals. In addition, there are institutional fixes that could promote a more unified agenda. The following article will delve into each of these issue areas in turn. It is not intended to address every single policy issue across the urban spectrum—a task the new Urban Policy Council would be well-positioned to do—but, rather, highlight a few notable opportunities for policy action in the next four years.

Here’s what they are:

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Institutional Alignment

The Biden administration would do well to corral the wide array of federal resources into a comprehensive urban development strategy underpinned by key values. While many people first think of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for urban work, urban-centered programming abounds across the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Interior, Defense, Energy, Transportation, Treasury, and State, to name just a few; all fund various components of urban, regional, and community development at scale. This list doesn't even consider funding from the Education and Labor Departments that shape the enabling environments for how mobility and human capital advancements can occur within urban spaces. 

The Obama White House established an Urban Policy Working Group, under a White House Office of Urban Affairs with inter-governmental authority, to tackle these issues in a unified manner and with significant stakeholder engagement, along with Members of Congress and Congressional committees. The Trump Administration largely let the initiative die, but the incoming Biden team should reinstate it immediately. While the Biden-Harris campaign platform featured a significant focus on housing, the drive to enable more widespread wealth creation will be more successful if implemented in tandem with related initiatives as part of a broader, cohesive urban agenda.

The reality is that urban development is a cross-cutting set of intertwined phenomena touching all areas of contemporary life in the US and beyond. Making significant progress in similar cross-cutting priorities of climate change, racial justice, and pandemic relief and recovery will benefit from greater institutional cohesion moving forward.

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Economic Goals

Facilitating economic growth has been a cornerstone of urban planning. Planners are responsible for ensuring that there are adequate employment opportunities and services to reflect various demographic changes in the short- and long-term future. While cities have various methods to encourage economic growth, we focus on one urgent federal program that can induce economic growth: welfare.

“Acknowledging current deficiencies in how the United States promotes welfare is needed before improving growth in and around cities.”

Urban development’s position within a policy framework can be used to further economic welfare, and it would be a sorely missed opportunity for the next administration to not balance economic welfare with personal well-being. Welfare is a multi-faceted condition, where nutrition, housing, and financial mobility exist together as components, especially in urban environments. This acknowledgement is a departure from previous administrations’ disposition towards welfare and urban well-being, which have been historically treated as separate entities in a vacuum. Acknowledging current deficiencies in how the United States promotes welfare is needed before improving growth in and around cities. Primitive and arguably hostile qualifications need to be replaced by reconfigured eligibility standards for nutrition and housing assistance programs, as well as targeting different households in the urban area as federal beneficiaries.

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Housing

Progress towards improved public urban policy requires acknowledging urbanization’s relationship with tenure and tenancy both inside and outside of city limits. Urban densities are typically defined as areas with more than 1,000 people per square mile, or 1.6 people per acre. 38 million acres were settled at urban densities, but nearly ten times that much land was settled for exurban densities. The prevalence of low-to-high exurban densities (1 house per 40 acres, to 1 house per 10 acres) has steadily increased from 1960 to 2010, demonstrating a growth in American land usage both inside and outside of cities, per Census figures.

According to the Eviction Lab at Princeton University, 3.6 million eviction cases on average are filed each year in the United States. Between 2000 and 2016, the number of evictions recorded increased by 25 percent, which may be attributed to the 27 percent rise in rented households. Evictions have been found in concentrations around large cities, including “high poverty areas.” The most concerning relationship eviction rates have is with the Black population, as evictions increase alongside related demographic increases. 

The rise in rented households is most prominent in younger Americans. A deeper examination in the United States Census Bureau’s American Housing Survey reveals that more than 50 percent of owners in both urban and urbanized areas are over the age of 44, and that urban homeownership is most commonly attributed to a household income greater than $100,000. Rural home ownership is more affordable, with larger representation in household income brackets less than $100,000 than urban and urbanized households.

Exurban densities are attributed to sprawl. Trailing cheaper rents, lower-earning income households settle proportionally away from metropolitan and urban centers. These households that spend a majority of their workday within an urban municipality will return to their household outside of the urban and metropolitan boundaries, which are still prey to evictions and above-market value rent.

The demographics behind who contributes to production in a city, who lives in a city, and who travels to a city are fluid. However, racial bias and generational gaps in ownership are static reminders that the United States has overlooked a growing problem. Younger households have a higher median income in rural areas, but lose out to more mature, higher-earning individuals in the race for city property. Income disparity grows not just between different geographic areas, but in age groups as well, amplifying the racial divide in income and household ownership.

Mitigating the lost opportunity in not owning urban property may require housing assistance based on race and age for first-time home ownership. While intense cohabitation is incentivized by programs like SNAP (or food assistance), it would be a healthier consequence of a housing finance program that offers assistance based on a fixed income and fixed density that grew as the household grew.

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Environmental Justice

Rising sea levels are threatening much of America’s coastal cities. However, the threat of climate change extends far beyond America’s coasts. Warming climates is projected to lead to increased flooding and longer and stronger droughts in America’s midwest. The effect on urban livelihoods are also worsened with declining nutrition resulting from less fertile land and decreasing biodiversity. These challenges have already marshaled a host of cities to recruit ‘resiliency planners’ who specialize in minimizing urban risks and negative externalities.

Entrepreneurial solutions to climate adaptation are growing, though their implementation has been spatially uneven. Recent studies suggest that higher-income areas are more likely to receive risk mitigation measures, while poorer neighborhoods are excluded from these benefits. This is not entirely surprising, since POC and low-income residents have historically been victims to environmental hazards. An influential report in 1987 found that, independent of class, race was the strongest factor in establishing proximity to hazardous commercial sites. A study using the most recent 2010 census data shows that in areas where hazardous wastes have been removed, an environmental form of gentrification is occurring.

Efforts towards curbing environmental hazards and others engendered by climate change must be cognizant of spatial and racial inequalities. This could involve integrating the urban poor and other communities stakeholders meaningfully in key roles. The federal government can make resource allocation contingent on the degree of spatial or racial inequities that are addressed through climate adaptation projects.

“But equity can’t just be a slogan.”

Infrastructure—particularly as it relates to transportation—could be the best frontier to make that happen. The Biden administration has a window of opportunity unlike any in recent memory to make good on revamping America’s broken state of infrastructure: rail; road; freight; metro; energy grids; etc. The president-elect helped write the last major infrastructure spending in America—the Obama administration’s 2009 stimulus package—and holds a slim Democratic majority to make it happen. He has also arranged a potential Cabinet of legislators with substantial urban backgrounds, namely Rep. Marcia Fudge (at HUD) and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg (at USDOT).

Equity is built into the president-elect’s ‘Build Back Better’ platform, and serious changes at these executive agencies—which have largely remained unchanged since they were created—could have significant impacts on the ground. The administration should learn from the previous mistakes of the 2009 bill, which overlooked climate equity and workforce development, and aim to use this opportunity to mark a new chapter forward for agencies that long perpetuated environmental injustices, whether directly or indirectly, through outdated policies.

Instead of highway-building, the USDOT should be centered around better, greener urban transport, and 21st century railway connections, ideally inter-urban and with rural America in mind. Big infrastructure projects, like the Gateway tunnel between New York and New Jersey, require an executive sign-off, but could double as a basis for new green skills training. HUD should rethink what public housing can be, mirroring the Green New Deal version for housing that has been introduced. And the Department of Agriculture could be a launchpad for carbon sequestration at scale. Real portfolio change could happen if fundamental shifts occur in these agencies’ mission statements. But equity can’t just be a slogan.

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Bridging the Urban-Rural Divide

Since the decline in manufacturing in the ‘Rust Belt,’ cities have experienced waves of growth and decline as a consequence of greater labor mobility and demographic shifts. A similar phenomenon can be observed in rural settings suffering from economic decline and population loss. However, not all cities experience similar issues, and not all rural areas encounter economic hardships.

In areas that have suffered economic decline or stagnation, migrants have become economic drivers, often supplying the necessary labor for manufacturing. In Nebraska, for example, rural towns often have higher demand than supply of labor and frequently struggle to fill seasonal and year-round agriculture jobs as well as higher-paid occupations such as health care workers. For rural states like Nebraska, continuing its refugee placement program and encouraging international migration should be a key priority. Attracting rural employment is one matter, but maintaining it becomes a consequent challenge. 

The Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design has done exemplary work connecting small-town residents to generate actionable plans. Much of these have been placemaking initiatives intended to improve the identity and livability of communities. Here, opportunities exist between city and rural residents, including urban artists, to establish collective work. This extends to the possibility of new initiatives, such as small-scale urban farming, in which urban entrepreneurs can connect rural goods to niche urban markets. 

“A sustainable future is dependent on the success of rural America and how it can effectively transform current economic practices.”

While there may be no shortage of entrepreneurship, resources are needed to bridge the urban-rural divide. This already exists in some form, such as the Rural Opportunity Zones and loans and grants furnished through USDA Rural Development. More recently, calls for a Green New Deal (GND)—an ambitious economic, social, political, and environmental agenda—has generated newfound enthusiasm. A coalition called US Ranchers and Farmers for the GND elaborated ways in which it can enhance rural economic growth. While the GND may not have been initially focused on rural areas, rural development is necessary to achieve much of the outlined goals, like clean air and water; climate and community resiliency; and healthy food. Even as skeptics are concerned with the GND’s potential ramifications on industrial processes, the envisaged Deal can encourage new farming innovations for a growing and diversifying consumer market. A sustainable future is dependent on the success of rural America and how it can effectively transform current economic practices.

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Regional and Territorial Planning

Even as the GND offers promises as a policy tool for economic development, the urban and rural divide still suffer from the friction of distance. Recent studies on the spatial distribution of populations across U.S. cities show that some cities may not be sufficiently sized given inefficient migration. An effective public transportation and infrastructure program may be one way to promote even development.

As cities have gained new attention as the battleground for sustainable development, cities are becoming increasingly connected given population growth, and could benefit from greater federal coordination. Successful application of regional planning can be observed in the metropolitan areas of New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and New Orleans. However, regional planning remains an elusive goal since “regions” do not exist in the American policy discourse, nor are elections regional. Elections are instead run on a federal, state and local level, and the lack of regional representation results in hyper-competitive cities. Currently few incentives exist for regional collaboration, but the consequence of inaction is easily apparent. 

Inter-city competition has been a cornerstone of economic development strategies, yet has also committed municipalities into barely lucrative positions. Cities seek to provide better employment opportunities, local amenities, diverse services, and generous tax incentives to attract middle-to upper-class residents and businesses and strengthen the local revenue base. While conventional economic wisdom would suggest that competition would enable efficient outcomes, the recent commercial bid for the new Amazon HQ2 demonstrated how efficiency may not necessarily result in prosperity, just or equitable outcomes for urban residents.

A report from the Urban Institute argues that competition between municipalities can quickly become “a race to the bottom.” Furthermore, they say that hyper-competition can “undermine public resources and long-run regional economic competitiveness, with high costs to communities.” This would suggest that the purported economic gains and employment growth from a new Amazon headquarters may not be commensurate with the billions in tax deductions, nor the negative externalities branded as the “Amazon effect.”  A White House Urban Policy Council can be the bridge that connects disparate but highly interconnected municipalities and their representatives.

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Urban-Led Foreign Policy

The United States is the largest bilateral donor country in the world, committing $47 billion across 12,000 projects in 2019. A diverse range of agencies manage different pockets of overseas aid, ranging from the Peace Corps to the US Department of Agriculture, though the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is the most prolific institution commonly associated with foreign aid. Notwithstanding the significant budget for overseas security operations managed by the Department of Defense, the US development budget has traditionally focused on key sectors: democracy and governance, health, education, and the environment. 

The need to maintain global security, combat terrorism, and advance American interests abroad have been the justification for the the United States’ foreign assistance. While Congress establishes the budget and often influences priorities, USAID takes policy direction from the National Security Council. In practice, the overseas development agenda is forgiving and aspires to achieve much more normative and laudable goals of eradicating global poverty, achieving universal primary education, and promoting access to basic health services. Much of these investments concentrate in rural areas across multiple partner countries.

Those familiar with USAID would not deny that the agency has a longstanding rural bias to development. This focus on rural development is a legacy of the 1973 Foreign Assistance Act, in which Congress exerted pressure on the then-burgeoning agency to channel funding to the world’s ‘poor majority.’ USAID had interpreted this as the “rural majority,” since the majority of USAID’s presence had been in predominantly rural countries. As some scholars have argued, “USAID development efforts have for many years have been dominated by rural oriented agriculturalists... The continued emphasis in USAID was on moving efforts out of the cities into the countryside.” An assessment of the agency’s 2013 Urban Policy, which sought to enhance urban service delivery worldwide, revealed that it was the least adopted policy out of other policies and strategies introduced during the same time period between 2014-2018. 

Since the introduction of the UN Sustainable Development Goals on “sustainable human settlements,” there has been renewed attention paid to cities, particularly mayors, as critical players in achieving sustainable development. But even while other major donors have intensified its development assistance in urban contexts, USAID has maintained its historical focus on rural development. This is due to a number of reasons: the lack of Congressional budgeting for urban development; limited agency experience in the urban sector; and the absence of leadership prioritization.

While cities can hardly be the single solution to global sustainability, it is clear that cities around the world are fraught with managerial crises that makes achieving global goals more elusive than a close reality. In countries ranging from Ethiopia to the Philippines, where local governments are a newer phenomenon than Microsoft, local development is complicated by managerial, planning and budgeting issues that are also common in domestic contexts. The difference is the speed and scale to which cities in emerging economies are growing and the urgency required necessary to accommodate a proliferating urban population. USAID’s historical presence and development experience can be leveraged for greater urban investments. 

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Throughout the Biden administration’s first 100 days in office, the North American team at Oxford Urbanists intends to publish in-depth articles and analysis into specific issues raised in this outlook. We aim to heighten conversations around the immense challenges U.S. cities face, and potential solutions forward as a new day dawns in Washington. Stay tuned.

Crises have crafted our economic development paths, designed our political global institutions, and defined social norms. Thus despite the unthinkable tragedy the COVID-19 pandemic has caused, it may provide us with a path forward, to “build back better” as it’s been said. And nowhere is that chance greater than with leaving the fossil-fuel economy behind.

Green investments are rated by economists as having a higher multiplier effect[1], and multilateral development banks (i.e. the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund) have adopted green standards to guide their financing decisions. The recovery seems set to be green.

Cities, of course, are privileged places for climate action to take place. They are responsible for 67% of all energy consumption across the globe and 75% of all CO2 emissions, besides concentrating 55% of the world population[2]. According to a 2019 report from REN 21 entitled “Renewables in Cities,” heating and cooling, transport and power are the three main sectors were energy is consumed in urban areas. Strategic action there can promote substantial changes to revert climate change, and improve quality of life, equity, and economic development for all.

The COVID-19 crisis, paired with the international and financial capital direction towards climate-friendly investments, opens an opportunity for developing countries to grow through renewables. With its megacity urbanisation model, major social inequalities and increasing share of CO2 emissions, the adoption of renewable energy standards by cities in middle- and low-income countries (MIC, LIC) might be a driver of development. Previous experiences with the expansion of accessible energy sources increased life quality standards and reduced emissions while promoting economic progress.

In this brief article, I’ll present some policy ideas from cities in emerging economies which have the potential to “build back better”. Considering the three strategic sectors of renewables in cities mentioned before, here are some case studies to show policymakers from the Global South how they can go for renewables now.

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Heating and cooling

The high temperatures in developing countries and the increases associated with climate change pose the challenge of sustainable cooling systems. These demand a lot of energy, which is particularly problematic when the sources are not sustainable. A growing number of cities have set renewable energy targets, but they are concentrated in Europe and North America, areas that have higher economic wealth and temperate-to-cold climates. For instance, 60-80% of all energy in Buenos Aires (Argentina), Delhi (India), Tehran (Iran), Dhaka (Bangladesh) goes to cooling, yet either they timidly target energy provision through renewables, or do not at all. [3]

To reduce the need of cooling and to improve the life quality of inhabitants, some cities invested in projects which aim to naturally “refresh” the town. Take the case of Medellin Alcadia.

The green corridor initiative not only promoted economic growth, but also made the city more attractive. In sum, it created networks of greenery across the city through the making of 30 “green corridors.” They connect existing green spaces to target the ‘urban heat island ‘effect, aiming to reduce up to two Celsius degrees the ambient temperature. The initiative received local and international appraisal, but its focus on low-income areas backfired, provoking the so-called “greentrification.” The poorest inhabitants of the area were pushed out of their former neighbourhoods due to the increase of the land value[4]—a lesson that must be addressed by governments who want to replicate similar initiatives. 

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Power

According to IRENA, 95% of the cities that have the highest solar potential (i.e., cities in the top 10% for global horizontal irradiance, or GHI) do not have a set target for supporting renewable energy development. Most of the cities within this energy potential are in developing regions, and despite the abundance of sunlight, their current energy grid (or, rather, the lack of a sustainable one) leads to constant shortages. The sunny Lagos in Nigeria, for example, consumes three times more energy than its main power plant, sourced by gas, can provide [5]. No wander blackouts became the rule, not the exception. 

Since 2009, the average costs of solar PV has fallen 80%, while the costs of battery storage technologies are decreasing rapidly and could decline a further 60% over the coming decade [6].  In India, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) owns PV systems and installed them in 55 rooftops of public buildings, making the selling of their energy to others a source of profit for their own budget [7]. Kisumu, in Kenya, will have a power plant which will substantially increase the offering of energy in the whole country through a public-private partnership with two foreign companies. The cost per Kwh will be 30% lower than the average (8.5 to 5.5 cents/kWh), sourced mostly by geothermic power plants. Not a coincidence that Kisumu became one of the few cities in the developing world to set the ambitious target of being 100% renewable by 2023.

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Transportation

Urban transport attributes 37% of all CO2 global emissions [8]. The tendency of cities towards motorization and the increased affordability of private vehicles contribute not only to pollution, but also, chaotic traffic in the Global South megacities. Public transportation might be seen with disdain due to social stigma, and the lack of proper infrastructure corroborates the adoption of individual transport choices [9].

Many cities are using their purchasing and investment power to reduce transport environmental effects while fostering the adoption of new technologies. Such procurement decisions can positively influence their technological advance and support industrial development. Kolkata (India) developed a pilot project for buses running on locally produced biogas from animal and human waste, with the low cost of the fuel being a main driver of the initiative [10]. Similarly, with the financial support of the Green Climate Fund, Karachi in Pakistan, which now scores as the worst public transportation in the world, will implement a fleet of 200 buses fuelled by cow pow[11]. Lola, in Ecuador, established that new taxis permits would only be issued for electric vehicles—a decision that was supported by the offering of a conditional credit-line of $43 million by the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB) to the purchase of electric buses and taxis in Ecuador [12].

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The Global South has an important role to play on building climate justice as its many inequalities urge for sustainable solutions. The target of financial institutions in green alternatives opens up a set of opportunities for cities from developing countries to invest in renewables, which can improve life quality standards and address climate change concerns. By seeing what has been done, it is with high hopes that decision-makers will be inspired to act.

Polly Lima is a Brazilian lawyer who holds a Master’s of Public Policy from the University of Oxford. Previously she was the head of the public-private partnership unit in the State of Maranhao, where she led different projects for infrastructure financing and social development. She was recognized by UNOPS as one the leading female professionals in infrastructure in Brazil (2019), and currently she is placed at OECD, where she assesses the performance of multilateral organizations.

Sources

[1] https://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/publications/wpapers/workingpaper20-02.pdf

[2] https://www.ren21.net/reports/cities-global-status-report/

[3] https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2016/IRENA_Renewable_Energy_in_Cities_2016.pdf

[4] https://ecologyaction.ca/sites/default/files/images-documents/Building%20Back%20Better%20Article%202020%20E%26A.pdf

[5] https://guardian.ng/business-services/lagos-suffer-shortfall-of-electricity-supply/

[6] https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2016/IRENA_Renewable_Energy_in_Cities_2016.pdf

[7] https://www.ren21.net/reports/cities-global-status-report/

[8] https://www.c2es.org/site/assets/uploads/2002/05/transportation_overview.pdf

[9] https://www.c2es.org/site/assets/uploads/2002/05/transportation_overview.pdf

[10] https://www.ren21.net/reports/cities-global-status-report/

[11] https://www.greenclimate.fund/project/fp085

[12] https://www.latinfinance.com/daily-briefs/2020/12/11/idb-finances-electric-cars-in-ecuador

This is the third installment of the The COVID-19 Response in North America series.

As holiday cases surge, this article will cover Montreal, Ecatepec de Morelos, and Los Angeles to complete the set of cities introduced in the series opener.

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Quebec’s capital is managing COVID-19 while making progress towards reducing its already-dwindling crime and homelessness. With approximately 1.9 million people, Canada’s second-most populous city currently has approximately 55,000 cases as of December 11, which is nearly seven times greater than the approximately 8,900 cases reported in Ottawa.

With only 10 percent more people than its capital city but seven times more COVID-19 cases, Montreal’s handling of the pandemic necessitates a deeper look into its urban composition. Montreal’s urban area is approximately 500 square miles, significantly greater than Ottawa’s 200 square miles of urban land area. However, Montreal’s city and metro area is 166 and 1,700 square miles respectively, dwarfed by Ottawa’s 1,000 square miles of city area and 2,100 square miles of metro area. Montreal’s more compact city area but larger urban sprawl reveals a compressed zone of interaction, and may explain the significantly greater COVID-19 affliction rate.

Alongside Ottawa and Toronto’s push for stricter lockdown measures, Montreal is implementing tighter tourism bans and reduced commercial services. According to the Hotel Association of Montreal, 2019 saw an 85% hotel occupancy rate as Montreal welcomed 11.1 million tourists. Despite growth in its tourism industry, Montreal is following national measures and is implementing activity restrictions similar to Toronto’s. However, Montreal’s response is not universally swift, as the pandemic has affected Montreal's bureaucratic efficiency, with 2019 crime statistics “filed very late to City Hall this year.” The noted uptick in violent crimes is attributed to changes in police crime filing notations, and requires 2020’s annual crime statistics to complete a baseline comparison.

Ecatepec de Morelos

Home to the headquarters of juice giant Jumex, Ecatepec de Morelos finds itself dealing with a morbid fatality rate beyond its historic femicide rates. With more than 14,000 recorded cases and approximately 2,200 deaths, COVID-19 mortality in Ecatepec de Morelos is 15 percent. Compared to Mexico City’s approximately 245,000 cases and 14,000 deaths—a 5.7 percent mortality rate—Ecatepec de Morelos’ COVID-19 handling is dangerously out of touch.  

With a population of approximately 1.7 million, Ecatepec de Morelos’ inclusion in this series’ analysis is based on its population both as a city and municipality, a unique dual-designation in Mexico. The city covers approximately 60 square miles, making it roughly the same size as D.C., and significantly smaller than Mexico City. Even though Ecatepec de Morelos is denser than Mexico City, its ratio of COVID-19 cases to population is not linear. With 5.7 times less recorded cases but nearly nine times less the population, Ecatepec de Morelos is an example of how population density, affliction rate, and mortality are not necessarily interchangeable. A confounding variable could be how supporting a larger population applies pressure on infrastructure policy for tourism or health care, as a certain living capacity cannot be fundamentally supported without a minimum level of care.

A 15 percent mortality rate reflects both the need for improved primary care access and the ongoing need for accessible and transparent data beyond COVID-19 statistics. The number of hospital beds per capita or even municipal health expenditures would be fair points of examination to compare different cities’ capacity to respond to the pandemic.

Los Angeles

Home to 4 million people, Los Angeles has recorded approximately 475,000 cases and 8,000 deaths as of December 11, compared to the approximately 24,000 cases and 700 deaths recorded in the District of Columbia. There are 20 times the number of COVID-19 cases in Los Angeles than in D.C., but only 4 times the number of city inhabitants. As one of the most populous cities in North America, it would be fair to expect a higher frequency of recorded COVID-19 cases in Los Angeles. The city area is approximately 500 square miles according to the US Census and services a metro area of nearly 4,900 square miles, dwarfing D.C. in city area but falling short compared to the 5,000 square miles of the DMV metropolitan area.

Before the pandemic, nearly 42,000 individuals were homeless in the city in 2019, and the rate is expected to rise according to the Los Angeles Homeless Service Authority (LAHSA). With more homeless than before, violent crime and crime against the homeless have increased as well, according to Crosstown. Despite the rise in homeslessness and crime rates, home sales in L.A. continue to grow, and the federal government has allowed for homelessness measurements to end in 2021.

The juxtaposition of a tent-city between Arnold Schwarzenegger’s gym and one of Google’s corporate offices reflects the disparity between social welfare and financial productivity. This disconnect demands a second look at available definitions of social well-being, and would build on the need for health care access established by Ecatepec de Morelos. Plotting generated income as altitude would likely reveal a gradual descent along the urban-to-metro edge, as rent traditionally increases closer to a city center. Higher-earning individuals are more likely to afford the increased rent, with homeless rows appearing as trenches or cuts on the surface area of reported income.

Transition to Framework Development

Capital cities act as a common denominator when comparing national and municipal policy responses within the same country, as capital cities may often be home to the intersection of both. Beyond comparing cities to their nation’s capitals, a comprehensive analysis requires comparing conditions before and during COVID-19. In the search for defining the features of the North American urban condition, pre-existing deficiencies and strengths reveal themselves through the pandemic resolution process, and provide a foundation for developing an analysis framework.

Canada’s ban on optional travel and tightening on border entry from the United States is representative of its municipalities’ response. Though a nation’s agency may be separate from its cities and municipalities, a national response may be the banner under which local policies follow. Ottawa and Toronto maintain a frequently updated online resource for COVID-19 statistics changes to public service, and the same can be said of Montreal.

A city’s response to the pandemic itself may constitute a feature of the urban condition, with Canada’s municipal COVID-19 dashboards and Mexico’s INEGI agency setting the example for top-down regional data availability. The ability to identify a problem, track any and all available data, and deliver publicly available information is telling of a city’s problem-solving capabilities.

Measuring an immediate response by a nation or city is not as comprehensive as examining the sustained efforts over a period of time. As Mexico improves its response to COVID-19 in urban environments, Los Angeles and Montreal both have shown cracks in the bureaucratic response. Delaying crime filings and suspending homelessness reporting nine months after the introduction of COVID-19 could be signs of policy fatigue.

Across all North American cities mentioned, physical characteristics have shown to play an important role in the spread and management of COVID-19. Population density in the city area alone is not granular enough, as metropolitan and sprawl areas invite interactions beyond city limits. Homelessness, home sales, and crime together may be used to plot the value of living in a city, but additional data such as current employment and funding for health public services need to be examined.

To obtain a better understanding of resident and tourist sentiment alike, a systematic and inclusive program of analysis needs to be implemented. The final article in this series will provide an overview of the physical characteristics and policy decisions that comprise North American urban features, and provide a framework to assess COVID-19’s impact in the future.

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Satvik Mishra is a resource economist at the United States Department of Agriculture, where he conducts economic analysis and regulatory policy development for the USDA and other agencies. Satvik is completing his Masters in Urban and Regional Planning at Georgetown University, and is interested in sustainable land-use, green infrastructure, and urban welfare. He hopes to combine his expertise in algorithm design, resource economics, and policy development to further understand and maintain a healthy urban environment. 

For the last 30 years all attempts had failed. Despite the best efforts of previous governments, the UNESCO World Heritage Centre in São Luís, on the northern coast of Brazil, seemed impossible to renew. Nonetheless, the new governor, Flávio Dino, was determined to restore the largest historic patrimony of Latin America and the regional pride of the community, as it had been long neglected. Popular disbelief in his ability to do so seemed warranted: courts were setting daily fines due to his predecessor’s failed attempts; he had no budget to support the expensive refurbishment oeuvres; and the legal constraints for historical restoration were time- and resource-consuming.

That begged the question: How do you bring a historical heritage area back to life?

The solution came with the project “Adote Um Casarão” (Adopt an Old Mansion). A new law offered fiscal subsidies and a legal license for occupying historic mansions to parties willing to renew and maintain the properties, if they developed activities with social impact. Although, of course, there is no easy recipe for policymaking, the mistakes and achievements of Adote Um Casarão might provide valuable lessons for overcoming institutional difficulties in developing areas.

As someone who worked on the project, I can share three of them:

SET THE PROBLEM PROPERLY: BUILD A RELIABLE CENTRALIZED DATASET

After a week of meetings with five different secretaries, I realized that no one could plainly state how many mansions on the historic site were state-owned. Although public servants would be able to tell me the name and the last two generations' stories of each mansion, there was no systematized information available, let alone the buildings’ official documents. Different state authorities held similar roles over the area, and there was a lack of communication between them. It was quickly evident that there was a problem at the historical centre, but also, it was not clear to the government to what extent.

A small team, sponsored by the governor, was given authority to enquire about the different state departments and to centralize data. One of the first steps? Set up a digital file containing key information over the historical center, and share this file with all main departments involved in the project. The buildings were presented in a map, and they were classified according to their current level of conservation and the estimated value of refurbishment. In possession of structured information, it was possible to more fully assess the problem—and to set priorities.

BALANCE FINANCIAL CONSTRAINTS AND SOCIAL DEMANDS: REFRAME THE LEGAL SOLUTION 

With a fiscal crisis unfolding across the country, it was clear that public funds would be insufficient to finance the expensive renewals of over 30 state-owned buildings. Brazilian law does not allow public buildings under historical protection to be sold to private parties, so privatization was not an option on the table. Furthermore, there was a growing pressure for the the buildings to represent the interests of low-income families, which would not be satisfied by market interests alone.

While a previous federal law allowed private investors to donate to cultural initiatives in exchange for equivalent tax deductions, Adote Um Casarão established a similar mechanism for the renewal of the downtown historic mansions. Investors interested in establishing activities on the public historic buildings would be responsible for their renewal, receiving a time-based license to operate activities on the restored mansion. Considering the time of the license and the renewal value, said investor would be able to have tax deductions up to the same amount of the restoring oeuvres, which would be deductible in the long run. Investors could also refurbish the building for third parties to occupy it. In this case, the investor receives the tax reduction and a third party—such as a non-profit or NGO—develops its activities on the mansion.

It is important to stress that the government is not contracting out the renewal of its buildings; rather, the administration is offering a conditional license and fiscal subsidies to interested parties to develop activities in public buildings. A committee involving public agents from different departments selects the proposals for “adopting” a mansion, judging them on what the proposals offer the historical building and their relevance to public interest. The community was previously consulted about main preferences for the area.

BUILD ALLIANCES: INCLUDE MAJOR PLAYERS FROM THE BEGINNING 

But having a project and financial resources was not enough. Different authorities from opposing political parties with varying visions all had a say over the same space. The historical centre was under heritage and patrimony protection of UNESCO—but also under the legal protection of federal, state and municipal government administrations in Brazil. Courts also played a major role, as they had a well-established jurisprudence ordering municipality, state and federal government to pay expensive fines due to the poor state of historic buildings. Personal fines were even issued to public authorities, and financial accounts of the institutions in charge of historical heritage protection were blocked as a way to apply pressure for change. Despite legal issues, it was clear that without agreement, hardly any project would succeed. 

Court decisions were used as an instrument to build unlikely alliances. As they concerned municipal, state and federal authorities, old mansions affected by judicial decisions were used to initiate discussions over possible solutions with other parties. Initial meetings established formal and informal agreements from a very early stage, which contributed later to building investor confidence over project feasibility. The joint selection of priorities, information sharing, and cooperation over related projects were main negotiating strategies. Courts were involved in sequence to secure legal approval for the initiatives agreed upon between the public authorities, and to suspend the fines. 

Present Day

Since implementation, Adote Um Casarão has selected nine old mansions to be adopted by different organizations, with a focus on areas such as technological development, education and culture. More than 500 new jobs in the private sector have been created. Adote Um Casarão is now part of a larger “Nosso Centro” initiative, a program that combines activities—such as housing, cultural events, security and education—to promote the social and economic development of the historic centre.

Structured data, a little bit of creativity and a lot of dialogue were able to once again make the centre a local pride. The impossible project is now a symbol of capital renewal, influencing not only its economical development, but also the sense of belonging in the area.

***

Polly Lima is a Brazilian lawyer who holds a Master’s of Public Policy from the University of Oxford. Previously she was the head of the public-private partnership unit in the State of Maranhao, where she led different projects for infrastructure financing and social development. She was recognized by UNOPS as one the leading female professionals in infrastructure in Brazil (2019), and currently she is placed at OECD, where she assesses the performance of multilateral organizations.

The COVID-19 pandemic has now breached 50 million cases, and resulted in over one million deaths. To better understand how COVID-19 has affected urban welfare in North America, a city-by-city public service lens will focus on homelessness and tourism in some of the countries’ most frequently visited cities: Toronto, Guadalajara, and New York City.

***

Toronto

The hometown of the NBA’s 2019 Championship team continues Canada’s exemplary form in COVID-19 data tracking and transparency. However, the diligently-provided data shows that Toronto has more than four times the number of reported cases and deaths while having three times the number of residents than Ottawa. It now stands at 34,608 cases and 1,460 deaths as of November 14.

With a population of approximately  2.7 million people, Toronto welcomes an estimated 27.5 million tourists a year and has approximately 10,000 homeless in the city. Currently under “red-control” or stringent measures, indoor dining, fitness, casinos, and meetings are banned. Postal services remain open under strict mask mandates and reduced occupancy, while schools’ openings are based on local COVID-19 cases, with provisions for remote learning and reduced occupancy. Attractions such as the CN Tower, Royal Ontario Museum, and the Toronto Zoo currently offer timed-entry tickets while the Hockey Hall of Fame and the Toronto History Museums allow reduced-capacity admission. Revenue information has yet to be released but it is highly unlikely these attractions experienced significant occupancy during the summer, let alone the currently-mandated 70% occupancy.  

Alongside activity zoning, Toronto has implemented a three-tier response based on prevention, mitigation, and recovery for homelessness, with the last step of recovery beginning as early as April 16th. The prevention tier includes temporary housing facilities, with 3,600 people relocated since March 2020 so far. Toronto’s relocation response is a marked increase in rehousing efforts, as there are approximately 75 shelters now compared to the 40 shelters available previously. The mitigation tier focuses on physical distancing measures, such as staggered meal times and rapid COVID-19 testing. 

Guadalajara

While the ever popular tequila trains in the capital of Jalisco have stopped, COVID-19 has not. As of November 14, the recorded number of COVID-19 cases has increased by 13 percent since November 11, to approximately 37,749 cases, while the recorded number of deaths has increased one percent, from 4,434 to 4,479. Meanwhile, the number of recorded cases in Mexico City has increased by nearly 30 percent in that same time period.

Guadalajara city-proper is home to 1.46 million and nearly 5 million residents comprise the greater metropolitan area, which is four times less than the approximately 21 million residents in Mexico’s capital city. The airports of Jalisco see nearly 2 million international passengers a year, and 4 million passengers total.  Most public services in Guadalajara are amenities that cater to Guadalajara’s tourist economy and its role as a business hub for Mexico. The state of Jalisco has shut most of its business activities down, with education being remotely administered and reduced capacity for essential business activities. However, the one area that was initially closed was Puerto Vallarta, the second largest bay in North America that sees millions of visitors a year. The “emergency button” in Jalsico’s biggest attraction was pressed just recently, on October 30.  Hotels in Puerto Vallarta are recommended to be at 50 percent capacity, with disease prevention measures in place for transportation and supermarkets, and essential businesses may remain open past 8:30 PM. The lockdown in Puerto Vallarta is part of Jalisco’s “statewide activity restriction” and follows a recent spike in COVID-19 cases.

Unlike its North American counterparts, Guadalajara’s response to homelessness is built off of its recent interventions. While there is a lack of state information on COVID-19 and homelessness statistics, visible efforts can be seen through the construction, maintenance, and renovation of “El Cadipsi,” the city’s rehousing project located in the business center. The total number of homeless persons in Guadalajara range from approximately 1,200 to 3,000, but El Cadipsi has already housed more than 4,000 over two years, as well as incorporating a three to six month labor and social reintegration program. 

New York City

New York City is returning to a stricter lockdown as the city’s COVID-19 count increases again to approximately 287,000 cases and 24,000 deaths, with color-coded zones for Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens. While no portions of New York City are in the “red-zone” currently, Staten Island is a new addition to the “yellow-zone,” and is indicative of the growing number of cases. Home to approximately 8.4 million people, New York City attracts approximately 65 million people a year. This tourist-to-resident relationship has prompted a growing demand for hotel rooms, with nearly 39 million rooms sold in 2019 at an approximate occupancy of 87.5 percent.

Compared to Toronto’s doubled-effort response to rehousing those without a home during COVID-19, New York City’s response is rather controversial. Rehousing the approximately 57,000 homeless individuals into hotels are met with frequent claims that “homeless [are] ruining the quality of life” by angered local residents. Endearing vocalizations of decreasing shelter occupancy exemplify that relocation and rehousing from New York City’s approximately 450 shelters will always be a complicated task. But COVID-19 has run rampant through an exposed population with pre-existing health conditions, and presents a risk matrix where an already vulnerable population in need may either remain forsaken, or be rehoused but potentially act as supplanted vectors for COVID-19. Fortunately, private citizens and organized efforts, such as Coalition for the Homeless, have stepped up to help, with a noticeable increase in outreach and online presence to secure shelter for those in need. 

Unlike the public reception to rehousing the homeless, demand for city parks has remained constant. Public restrooms and water fountains are open as well, though official park tours, “Discovery Walks,” sports programs, and public group volunteering are on pause. Schools in the color zones remain closed with remote learning, unless otherwise specified, and the subway system continues to operate with a mask mandate. According to NYCGo, indoor attractions such as museums and aquariums are to be 25% occupancy, including guests and workforce, with wellness and spas allowed a 50% capacity. Retail and dining facilities outside of the color zones are to follow physical distancing standards and 50% capacity.

Comparative Findings

Are public services tied to the tourism industry? Is COVID-19 better handled in cities that don’t rely on tourism? A retrospective hedonic analysis would be needed to statistically confirm if there is a relationship between a city desirable to visit and also one desirable to reside in.

In the meantime, New York City, with nearly eight tourists for every resident, sees the growing pressure to maintain a supply of open hotel beds as an opportunity to save and relocate the afflicted and vulnerable homeless. Toronto establishes that a tourist-viable city can increase the risk of COVID-19 transmission—even if its population and tourist numbers are significantly smaller than North America’s biggest tourist destinations. The smaller number of total active people also affords a lower density of human interaction, allowing reduced-capacity and timed-entry tickets as non-transmissive market choices to the Toronto public. When the population is small and comparable to the number of tourists attracted, an absolute and immediate measure may prove to be the most efficient for the local economy, like in Guadalajara. 

 Although it is privileged to write about pestilence and its effects on the already-vulnerable, the fact remains that the perspective allows for some of North America’s solutions to shine through. Measures such as timed-ticket access, hotel relocation, immediate closure, and publicly-sourced outreach are showing that they can help fill the gaps in North America’s different cities.

***

Satvik Mishra is a resource economist at the United States Department of Agriculture, where he conducts economic analysis and regulatory policy development for the USDA and other agencies. Satvik is completing his Masters in Urban and Regional Planning at Georgetown University, and is interested in sustainable land-use, green infrastructure, and urban welfare. He hopes to combine his expertise in algorithm design, resource economics, and policy development to further understand and maintain a healthy urban environment.

For part one of this article, click here.

The recent electoral success of the Labour-led government, which instituted a review of the Resource Management Act (RMA), will undoubtedly ensure that the RMA’s days are numbered.

Its demise was inevitable given the increasing demonisation of the RMA as the cause of housing unaffordability and its disjointed structure, a product of decades of amendment. Somewhat unusually, most of the research into the new legislation was not produced by the small and policy-focused Ministry for the Environment (MfE), but instead ceded to Environmental Defence Society (EDS), a ‘not-for-profit environmental organisation comprised of resource management professionals who are committed to improving environmental outcomes.

In July 2020, a review panel delivered an ambitious proposal in their report to government: replace the RMA with two interrelated Acts—the Natural and Built Environments Act, and a Strategic Planning Act, thereby acknowledging the failure of the RMA to fully serve the needs of urban New Zealand. The oddly framed sustainable management framework would be replaced by a requirement to enhance the quality of the environment to support the wellbeing of present and future generations while recognising the concept of Te Mana o te Taiao – a 'strategic direction for the protection, restoration and sustainable use of biodiversity in Aotearoa New Zealand’. While the RMA has gradually better recognised both tikanga Māori (Māori customs) and matauranaga Māori (the Māori view of the environment), this new proposal puts Māori environmental principles at the heart of the new Acts rather than leaving them as subsidiary concerns.

However, as with the RMA, what is being proposed in the two new Acts is revolutionary—rather than evolutionary—change. This may create challenges, as revolutionary change requires the plans, methods and processes of the past to be wholly abandoned, leading to a loss of some of the positive outcomes of the RMA and an over-reliance on often-slow-to-emerge appeal decisions from the Environment Court. Central government politicians will also have to commit to playing a more constructive planning role, presumably through a revamped and expanded MfE, something they were happy to shirk in the past.

The new Acts would require fewer but more far-reaching plans. Here the model is clearly the Auckland Spatial Plan and the Auckland Unitary Plan, which overlook the fact that those plans only make sense and work because the city is the country’s only metropolitan centre. In the rest of New Zealand’s territorial and regional councils with mana whenua—the power and jurisdiction associated with the possession and occupation of tribal land—the proposed Strategic Planning Act requires a high level development regional spatial plan, ‘consistent with the purposes of the Natural and Built Environments Act, LGA and LTMA, national direction, the national adaptation plan under the CCRA and relevant government policy statements’ and a single regulatory plan. The spatial plan’s scope is ambitious and calls for a level of integration never before attempted in New Zealand. Moreover, it will be applied to regions where the boundaries are based on river catchment areas, which again seems to reduce the urban focus of the acts while emphasising the infrastructural integrative planning aspects. In fact, these regions may make little sense for spatial land-use planning, achieving fewer but perhaps much more complex plans.

The review panel’s commitment to streamlining the planning system by creating uniform plans across the country suggests the use of a template plan, in keeping with the approach of MfE’s National Planning Standards. Their slow development highlights the enormity of the task of preparing an effective template plan to meet the needs of urban New Zealand in particular. New Zealand has an odd urban hierarchy, which has always been dominated by Auckland with a present population of 1.59 million. The next most populous cities are Christchurch with 378,000 residents and Wellington with 202,737, while the country's sixth largest city, Palmerston North, has only 88,000 residents. That means most New Zealand cities are modest in size . The aim of these uniform plans is also to reduce the time and cost of getting a planning consent. New Zealand already has a development-responsive planning system where between 95 and 97% of all consent are granted, so the focus will surely be on reducing the time and cost aspects of getting consent.

The legislative reforms will also attempt to reduce the involvement of submitters in actual consent applications by ‘sorting out’ more issues, via mediation processes, when plans are created. Mediation is rarely an even-handed process, with the well-resourced inevitably achieving more than the modestly resourced individual or community group. This sorting out process will place a significant burden on communities to envisage the type and nature of development that a plan is allowing in their community at the time the plan is constructed.  This will undermine New Zealand’s long commitment to consultation and submission as part of its planning system. New Zealand has always had third-party appeal rights, which were expanded under the RMA to allow anyone to make a submission on a plan or consent application. While apocryphal tales abound of vexatious submitters using this to delay development they are unaffected by are impossible to verify, communities do believe they have a role to play in shaping the development of their environments.

So, it remains to be seen how long it will take to achieve a replacement for the RMA. One can only hope it is enough time to avoid recreating the errors inherent to it.

***

Dr. Caroline Miller is an Associate Professor in the School of People, Environment & Planning at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand.

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North America: A Capital Analysis

North America covers more than 9 million square miles yet is home to less than 10 percent of the world’s population. Of the approximately 550 million people in North America, nearly  7 percent live in Canada, 23 percent in Mexico, and 60 percent in the United States. Our examination of the current urban conditions on the North American continent will focus specifically on cities in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. These three countries collectively represent 89 percent of North America’s land area and 85 percent of the North American population. Moreover, more than a fifth of recorded COVID-19 cases and deaths have been on the continent.

Canada

Covering more than 3.8 million square miles and inhabited by more than 38 million people, Canada finds its population density approximately as 9.6 people per square mile. As of November 11, the country has seen approximately 273,000 total cases and 10,600 deaths, representing approximately .5 percent and 1 percent of globally recorded cases and deaths, respectively. A fatality rate of 5.2 percent places Canada as both the least population-dense country and least infected country of the three examined.

Ottawa

The national response to COVID-19 is embodied in Canada’s capital city. Ottawa Public Health’s website features a lightweight and responsive data dashboard for case status, time trend, outbreaks, testing, and other monitoring indicators. Ottawa’s Public Health services approximately 1 million people, so far recording nearly 7,700 cases and 347 deaths recorded as of November 11th, 2020.

Mexico

Mexico covers approximately 760,000 miles, and is the second-most populous country in North America with approximately 128 million inhabitants. Nationally, more than 979,000 cases and over 95,000 deaths have been recorded as of this week. Reliable, and more importantly, available data on Mexico’s COVID-19 testing, active case, and public health infrastructure impacts are sparse, especially compared to the United States and Canada. Mexico’s recorded case and death totals represent 2.2 percent and 8.3 percent of global cases and deaths respectively.

Mexico City

Mexico City is the most populous city in North America and the 5th most populous city in the world, while also home to more than 21 million people, according to the UN. The lack of current and reliable COVID-19 statistics for Mexico is most evident in the availability of data for its capital city, and one of the largest cities in the world. Most recently, the capital of Mexico found itself handling more than 139,000 recorded cases and approximately 14,000 deaths, but numbers could be much higher. Compared to Ottawa and Washington D.C., there is a lack of testing per citizen, and total tests taken, that is readily available by either the municipality or a third-party data collector.

United States

The most populous country in North America, the United States, covers approximately 3.8 million square miles with 330 million people. As of this week, there are approximately 10.3 million total cases recorded in the United States, with over 240,00 deaths, according to the latest figures. This represents nearly 21 percent of globally recorded COVID-19 cases and deaths, while housing less than 5 percent of the world’s population.

Washington DC

To examine the urban response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, the capital of Washington D.C. will be used as a benchmark for American cities. As of November 11th, 2020, there were 567,000 total overall tests, including from 270,000 individual District of Columbia citizens. There are currently over 18,000 cases and 65 deaths, resulting in an approximately 4 percent fatality rate (deaths/cases).

Moving Forward During “The Great Lockdown”

The grim metrics examined provide a statistical backbone for the ongoing analysis series of the urban COVID-19 response in North America. Two cities from each country will be examined together, with focuses on their unique and varied urban responses.

Canada—and Ottawa, in particular—set an example of precision and thoughtfulness in data presentation. The Ottawa dashboard sets a precedent for availability and transparency, even though the total volume of COVID-19 cases are lower in Canada than currently observed in the rest of North America. Despite widespread availability of COVID-19 tracking data, a foundation can be laid to examine how the ongoing pandemic has affected the qualitative components of everyday life.

In the following articles, the North American urban response to COVID-19 will be examined through a diverse set of lenses, including public health infrastructure, homelessness, public amenities, and the ensuing economic recovery—for both businesses, and individuals.

***

Satvik Mishra is a resource economist at the United States Department of Agriculture, where he conducts economic analysis and regulatory policy development for the USDA and other agencies. Satvik is completing his Masters in Urban and Regional Planning at Georgetown University, and is interested in sustainable land-use, green infrastructure, and urban welfare. He hopes to combine his expertise in algorithm design, resource economics, and policy development to further understand and maintain a healthy urban environment.

New Zealand has just completed a COVID-19 delayed national election, where politicians suggested repealing New Zealand’s planning statute — the Resource Management Act of 1991 (RMA) — would instantly solve the country’s housing and development problems. While all political parties agree the RMA will and should be repealed, there is little evidence that politicians understand the issues that must be resolved before a replacement can be successfully fashioned.

The descent of the RMA from cutting-edge legislation — the first attempt to achieve a version of sustainability — to election scapegoat highlights the ambivalence communities exhibit when economic aspirations meet environmental realities. The RMA promised much, including creating a faster, cheaper and more integrated planning system, while also identifying and mitigating adverse environmental effects. When this system failed to emerge, the government responded with endless amendments to ‘fix’ the RMA, which only succeeded in creating new problems. The RMA did produce some environmental improvements, but not in a progressive and consistent manner. The Act’s woes can be partly attributed to successive governments declining to play their role in the Act’s three-part mandate, leaving regional and city/district councils to each implement their version of the RMA. Inevitably, variable interpretations of the RMA’s provisions by different local authorities produced new complaints from the business sector and yet even more amendments.

New Zealand is a highly urbanised country, with some 86% of its population living in urban areas. Given this, it was surprising that the RMA effectively made urban New Zealand a footnote in the statute. The term ‘urban’ appears a mere six times, primarily in definitions,  and ‘city’ not at all in the 804-page Act. Section 5, which defines the Act’s central philosophy of sustainable management — basically sustainable development, without the economic and social elements — only mentions communities. No urban issues, beyond a nod to heritage preservation, are identified in section 6 as a Matter of National Importance. This urban blindspot has created issues in producing effective plans and planning administration systems for urban areas, from an almost completely environmentally-focused Act.

Further issues arose from the RMA’s focus on achieving uniformity. Regardless if the resource consent sought was for a medium-density housing complex or to take water for an agricultural use, all followed a common process that required an assessment of environmental effects. Like much of the RMA, it looked good on paper but proved challenging to implement. Identifying the environmental effects of discharging waste to land or water tended to be easier than trying to do the same when the application was for a building to intrude into a sideyard. In the past, New Zealand’s planning system had had significant permissive provisions with a house requiring no specific planning approval if it met the development performance standards set out in the district plan. The emphasis in the RMA on environmental effects saw these standards become more complex and demanding with little evidence that this created better urban outcomes.

Gradually, more activities became subject to resource consent processes. Inevitably a new cadre of RMA lawyers and consultants emerged to oversee and advise on the complex and weighty assessments RMA processes required. Local authorities, as neoliberal policies demanded, sought to recover more of the cost of planning processes. As a consequence, the cost and time required to undertake a development ballooned. That made the RMA a convenient but simplistic scapegoat for urban development pains, particularly in Auckland, the closest to a metropolitan centre that New Zealand has. Its growth issues can be traced back to the 1900s so it is doubtful that the RMA was really the demon that created its unaffordable housing stock. Equally, the open and consultative approach so admired in the RMA at the outset provided a voice for communities. Urban residents in particular were quick to organise opposition to developments they disliked, such as attempts to introduce higher- and medium-density housing in inner-city suburbs in Auckland and Wellington. Recently, the government intervened with a National Policy Statement to try to compel provision for such developments. However, the existence of third party appeal rights leave local communities with some ability to continue to contest such developments.

It is against this backdrop that the process of RMA reform has begun. The landslide victory of Labour in the elections will allow them to govern alone, signalling that it will be their vision of replacement that will dominate the process.

To be continued…

***

Dr. Caroline Miller is an Associate Professor in the School of People, Environment & Planning at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand.

As any reader of this site knows, there’s been endless talk about COVID-19 and its effects on urban life. Possibilities and solutions have been discussed at a rapid clip because, by now, we have realized how vital public spaces are, how necessary it is to adapt our lives to the “new normal”, and how much our lives have effectively changed.

But there’s a key question often overlooked: whose lives are we talking about?

The dominant discourse of COVID 19 and cities seems to be built around a singular narrative, assuming the crisis has been more or less the same for different places with few variations. It establishes an ongoing story in three acts: business as usual; disruption by lock-down, which empties streets and transformed routines; and a gradual return, where we are rethinking the role of public spaces.

Yet this discourse fails to consider other street lives and urban cultures which exist in large parts of the world, and the most vulnerable populations, who are dealing with the hardest aspects of the pandemic. Due to economic and social inequalities, alternative ways of organization of everyday life in public space already took place long before the COVID-19 crisis, and for these sectors these three acts didn’t happen as neatly, if at all.

For some populations, COVID-19 measures didn’t imply a change, but rather another constraint to deal with, along with preexisting complications of street life. For others, public space was never accessible, inclusive or safe to begin with, while many already used public space for more than leisure out of preexisting needs.

The pandemic, along with lockdown measures, aggravate ongoing structural inequalities pertaining to class, race, income, and gender. We can observe this at a micro level (individuals that coexist in any given city) by focusing on women, and at a macro level, on the Global South.

Women, the pandemic, and public space

In recent years, practitioners in various fields have come to understand how different the lived experience of public spaces can be for women. Security is one of the most important concerns for women across the world. Understandably, women have a very poor perception on security in public space, due to sexual remarks, touching, rape, and gender-related killings. Conditions of everyday life in public spaces — such as poor lighting, low pedestrian traffic, and walking alone — present greater risks. It goes without saying that risks are higher for disabled or racialized individuals.

In cases where lockdowns were enforced, activity on the streets dropped drastically during the day, and streets were desolate at night. Without this activity, some cities decided to turn off public lighting. Less activity also meant less commutes, which led to a temporary reduction in public transit services. For those women whose activity continued during lockdown, this represented longer distances to walk along empty and darkened streets at night.

With less activity and less customers, shops and businesses shut down, some of them permanently. What was a bustling street became a residual space overnight, and many have yet to recover even after lockdowns have been lifted. Poor lighting, lack of passive surveillance — from patrons, or customers — and a general absence of activity are factors that make for unsafe conditions for women in particular.

Whereas in many cities there has been a drop of crime rates, this has not necessarily improved women's perception of security in public space during the COVID-19 crisis. Although it has been remarked how lockdown exacerbated issues of domestic violence, the issues of insecurity and violence in public space for women has to still be addressed in forums of city making and urban analysis.

Sexual violence in public spaces didn’t stop during the crisis. Cases in Chile, UK, Canada, Nigeria, Kenya, the Philippines, India, the US, France, and Mexico have registered cases of sexual violence against women when exercising outdoors, working in public work settings, or living in the street. Traveling to and from work is particularly dangerous for essential workers. Female healthcare professionals have been harassed, verbally and physically attacked or denied access to public transportation.

For female informal workers, there is a composed risk amidst a health crisis for a demography that is already economically vulnerable. It is especially significant when we consider that female informal workers account for 95% in South Asia, 89% in sub-Saharan Africa, and 59% in Latin America and the Caribbean.

New crisis and old urban issues in the Global South

Lockdown and social distancing have proved to work in diverse contexts as measures to prevent the spread of the disease. Certain conditions facilitate following these protocols, such as: housing (mostly formal); clear differentiation between private and public space, home and work; access to digital tools and technological literacy; access to water; and formal employment.

These conditions are common in the Global North, and in the elite neighborhoods in the Global South. A large portion of the population of the Global South has to deal with reduced, shared, and unaffordable housing (informal and/or auto-constructed); shared basic infrastructure (toilets, kitchens, water taps); high rates of informal employment (i.e. informal workers represent 10% of total employment in France; in Mexico, they represent 53%); citizens earning their livings in public space; and livelihoods that depend on mobility and contact with others.

In these conditions, lockdowns and social distancing have been hard to enforce — or, if so, it was limited to elite neighborhoods. Technology has been hailed as a way to keep going forward while on lockdown. But access to technology is still a luxury for many people.

For example, the Mexican government announced in early August that classes would continue by TV. As we know, a home office is not possible for everyone, as parents still have to go to work, while many others have lost their jobs, forcing them during this crisis into informal employment (meaning contact with people and public space). Furthermore, certain countries in Latin America have dealt with security crises in the past decades, and issues of violence have unfortunately not been reduced during the pandemic.

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Life in the public space didn’t stop. It continued — with masks and gloves, and amidst violence from common and organized crime, as well as law enforcement. For the populations that don’t exactly fit into our three-act structure, COVID-19 didn’t reveal new vulnerabilities. It intensified those that were already there.

Therefore, it is our responsibility, as actors for urban change, to consider other narratives and urban lives into our formulations of the present and the future of this pandemic.

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Edna Peza is an architect-urbanist and PhD candidate at the Université de Paris (CESSMA Laboratory), specializing on the link between feelings of insecurity, daily routines, and public spaces. Her research is funded by the Horizon 2020 Marie Curie Actions and the Fondation Palladio. She is the founder of CITY-CITÉ-CIUDAD, an international startup focusing on collaborating with urban actors to improve safety in public spaces at a human scale.

scorched-earth, noun 

/ˌskɔːtʃtˈɜːθ / 

the act of destroying everything in an area that could be useful to an enemy. 

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Almost a year after the largest fires in Australian history, homes lost in the disaster have started reconstruction. The fires — which saw 3,000 houses destroyed across the country, 2,400 of which were in New South Wales (NSW) — have laid bare the inadequacies of the Australian government’s climate action and bushfire resilience strategies. Scientists warn us that climate change will exacerbate bushfire conditions, making similar events more extreme and frequent in the future. In this light, NSW has a critical window of opportunity to reconstruct urban systems from scorched earth, which could herald a new approach to resilience against the interconnected crises of climate change and bushfires.

The urban environment has a large stake in Australia’s climate performance, with 86% of the nation’s population located in carbon-intensive suburban and exurban parts of its cities. Given that the residential sector is responsible for 20% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, reductions of household emissions alongside city densification are an essential lever for climate reparation. In spite of this, most dwellings are built to minimum energy standards, both increasing electricity costs for residents and negatively impacting the environment. With pressure mounting on Australia to implement policies to reach the targets laid out by the Paris Agreement, the sustainable design of new construction should be active in the decarbonisation of Australia’s cities and towns. 

In its most populous city, Sydney, tourists crowd to witness the Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House. Last year, the harbour icons were barely visible through an apocalyptic red haze; the city’s ‘green lungs’ - national parks on its outskirts - burned during the fires, the smoke suffocating its residents. Most of Sydney’s population growth occurs in the low-density suburbs, which sprawl out to its national parks and bushlands. Not only more susceptible to bushfires, residents on the suburban edge are also more dependent on private vehicles to traverse the city, causing air pollution, straining city services and contributing to the ballooning of per capita emissions. In order to minimise the urban domain’s impact on Sydney’s climate targets, the city needs to densify rather than expand. The benefits are twofold: these measures will reduce Sydney’s carbon emissions and the bushfire risk for its newest communities. 

With residential areas razed and their resources charred following the 2019-20 bushfires, the actions of the state and local governments will be foundational to the recovery of NSW. However there still isn't a unifying plan to rebuild these communities to abate both the climate and bushfire crises. In the recent fires, buildings on land which was not classified as bushfire prone were still burnt down, indicating classifications aren’t adapted to the severity of recent bushfire events. Older homes built on less stringent, earlier standards, could also be at a higher risk of bushfire damage. Furthermore, in spite of the damage incurred in 2019-20, NSW’s primary planning and environmental legislation, The Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979, still allows housing to be built in extremely high bushfire risk areas. Planners have the opportunity to reduce the devastation of future disasters by creating a strategy for the upgrading of housing to newer fire standards, providing humane relocation for residents in extreme cases and limiting new construction on high-risk land. 

The bushfires have revealed the precariousness of planning compliance in guaranteeing the safety of homes. The nature of bushfire risk factors is not momentary, as opposed to the obtainment of compliance. Features of a property that change with time — such as garden cover, and the maintenance of properties — can impact a building’s fire risk and, therefore, must be approved on a rolling basis by local planners. This ongoing approval must be coupled with a broader planning approach to understand risks and resilience across streets, towns and in between towns. To combat the totality of the bushfires, the planning system in high-risk areas should adopt a more dynamic approach to reducing the risks to residents.

The rebuilding of scorched-earth towns has exposed the needs for local, state, federal and industry cooperation to recreate stronger, more sustainable communities. Local councils have received a $1 million payment from the federal government to aid with the recovery. While communities and their leaders can decide how they rebuild with federal and state funds, insurance companies drive the timing and nature of residential reconstruction. 

South of Sydney, in the Bega Valley, bushfire victims face homelessness and little insurance a year after the disaster. With lengthy design, approval and construction times ahead of them, residents there have opted to rebuild unconventional fire resistant and sustainable houses. Modular architecture is able to provide a quicker, greener recovery for residents eager to return to a home. Victorian construction firm, Atomic 6, has streamlined the planning process, with the ability to construct modular houses in two weeks. The houses are off-grid, powered by solar cladding, and have self-contained water catchment and recycling systems. They’re also made using fire-resistant materials and can include heat-sensing sprinklers and window shutters. 

However, the widespread adoption of modular homes for disaster relief may negatively impact the cultural identity of communities like Bega. Previously characterised by heritage cottages and homes constructed across multiple generations, relying on modular architecture as a long-term solution for rebuilding towns could look homogeneous and feel temporary. While housing must be sustainable and fire-resistant, it shouldn’t compromise local character. To allow for this, insurance schemes must be flexible to accommodate timelines in rebuilding the residential sector, which are tailored to the needs of individuals. 

In Bega, the onus falls on the individual landowner to reconstruct homes that combat climate change and mitigate against bushfires. Rebuilding will continue into the future, but requires commitment across levels of government to ensure scorched-earth urbanism, which is responsive to Australia’s long-term wellbeing. These initial years of disaster recovery must embed resilience into communities while ensuring cities are not exacerbating the factors that led to their destruction.

***

Kate Field is an Oceania Coordinator at Oxford Urbanists. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture and Environments from the University of Sydney and is based in London.

Michelle Tjondro is a strategy consultant supporting regional development policy for Australian state government. She is passionate about the science of cities and has also published in the Journal of World Languages. 

Oceania as a continent has been somewhat absent in the discussion regarding issues of relevance for urban development. Apart from the case of Australasia (Australia and New Zealand), which is more linked with the engagement from the ‘West’ or the ‘North’ as developed nations, most other locations in Oceania do not have sufficient coverage. Even if the population of some of these locations is low, and urban development is not as high as other places, there are stories from the built environment coming from there that the international discussion is not observing. 

At Oxford Urbanists we are interested in fixing this lack of knowledge coming from other nations and territories of the pacific. Issues like climate change, the application of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and more recently the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in tourism for example, spark new questions that we want to discuss. In this new Oxford Urbanist series -entitled ‘Voices from the Pacific: Urban issues of Oceania’ – we want to hear from academics, practitioners and everyone involved in cities about urban issues emerging from locations in Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia. 

Generally, the guidelines will follow these key themes:

• Climate Change and island living. What are the impacts of the climate emergency for human settlements and cities in the pacific? 

• Resource management. What are the challenges for management of resources in Urban contexts of the pacific?

• Environment. Which are the main challenges regarding the environment in the contexts of cities in the pacific? 

• COVID-19 futures:  How have informal settlements in the Pacific islands experienced the ongoing public health and economic crises? How will this shape urbanisation trends?

• The SDGs. How are the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) being applied in contexts of the pacific?

*Note to contributors: Submissions to Oxford Urbanists are unpaid. We encourage contributors to submit pre-existing or ongoing research. For this call, we limit the scope of articles to those engaging with the following locations: Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Tuvalu, Wallis and Futuna, Tonga, Samoa, Tokelau, American Samoa, Niue, Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Easter Island. 

ABOUT OXFORD URBANISTS

Based at the University of Oxford, Oxford Urbanists tackles contemporary urban challenges with innovative solutions developed through interdisciplinary, global collaboration. (See previous Urbanists publications here.) We co-publish and act as a platform for articles on issues relating to urban and infrastructure development issues around the world. These typically take the form of op-eds, research briefs, or analyses ranging from 750-2,500 words. We also publish Q&As of specialist researchers, activists, or community organizers/practitioners on relevant topics (1,000 words minimum).

PROJECT CONTACTS

OU Oceania Regional Team (oceania.ou@gmail.com)

John Surico (jsurico15@gmail.com) is the Regional Focus Editor at Oxford Urbanists.

Large cities have always thrived as places of connectivity – it’s what makes them places where people choose to live and work. However, COVID-19 has revealed that it is these very characteristics which make cities most vulnerable to pandemics. What we have seen throughout the UK is the value of collective intelligence — not at a city scale, but rather, at the scale of the neighbourhood. Mutual aid, volunteering, local WhatsApp and Facebook groups have provided the benefits of local collective intelligence in urban areas.

During COVID, there has been an unprecedented rise in ‘neighbourliness,’ which is in stark contrast to recent years. A 2018 survey showed that 68 percent of people would describe their neighbours as ‘strangers’. Knowing your neighbours isn’t just a nicety, but a form of social support network whose benefits are revealed in times of crisis. It’s important to understand that they work at a neighbourhood scale. Famed urbanist Jane Jacobs highlighted how this local ‘social capital’ — the everyday activities and interactions that occur in a neighbourhood — builds up a network of relationships that provides a foundation for mutual trust, shared efforts and resilience in times of trouble.

The connections made at neighbourhood- and street-level during COVID have been, for many, a coping mechanism for social isolation, and the majority of these connections have been digital. The pandemic could provide the final shift in how technology is used in smart cities to one that is primarily about building communities. Technology used locally can enable cities to become more neighbourly and places of mutual support. For example, video calling with friends and family has doubled during COVID with seven in 10 UK adults online now making weekly video calls.

Digital services can also provide access to relevant information, health professionals and peer support and it can help manage conditions and improve health and wellbeing. Yet according to a study by Citizens Online in February this year, of 6,691 GP surgeries in England more than half had less than 30% of patients registered for online services.

COVID brought an upsurge of local and neighbourhood organising in the UK. There are now over 4,000 mutual aid groups nationally, in both rural and urban areas. Mutual aid groups have created a hyperlocal infrastructure of care that includes diverse digital platforms and applications, as well as physical media such as leaflets and posters.

This success suggests it is time to refocus on ‘hyperlocal’ neighbourhoods; where technology helps to build vital social capital — the ties that provide mutual support in times of need. A project in the city of Plymouth has been working at a neighbourhood scale to build mutual support. Working in the Stonehouse neighbourhood, where statistics show residents are likely to die 15 years before those in more affluent parts of the city, they have taken a hyperlocal approach during COVID to connect people. Through Borrow Don’t Buy, a ‘library of things’, they have taken donations of unwanted digital devices and distributed them to local people in need. Working with the University of Plymouth they have installed free neighbourhood Wi-Fi to support those without access to the internet. Another pilot programme in the city has trialled a model of ‘digital prescribing’: identifying people with health problems who lack digital skills and can’t afford devices. In providing the device, a gateway for support opens in the form of a follow-up telephone call and advice as to how to use the technology for their own health needs.

We need to think beyond cities, and look at how we use technology to help us be healthier at a neighbourhood scale. Humanising technology and enabling neighbours to be socially connected — not only just through a digital connection — can help to address the stark health inequalities in our cities exposed by COVID.

***

Katharine Willis is Professor of Smart Cities and Communities, and lead on the UKRI-funded Centre for Health Technology Pop-up at the University of Plymouth. Over the last two decades she has worked to understand how technology could support communities and contribute to better connections to space and place. Her recent research addresses issues of digital and social inclusion in smart cities, and aims to provide guidance as to how we can use digital connectivity to create smarter neighbourhoods.

This article was originally published on the University of Plymouth’s website.

Fires 

In mid-October 2019, Lebanon started to burn. Literally.

Hundreds of forest fires — the worst in decades — broke out in the western areas of the country, sweeping plumes of smoke towards Beirut and the old city of Sidon. The problem was not so much the fires, per se, but the government’s incapacity to properly quench them. Three Sikorsky S-70 firefighting helicopters hadn’t been maintained in years by the Ministry of Interior, so they were unusable. In the end, it was assistance from Cyprus, Jordan, Italy and Greece that helped put the fires out.

But in Lebanon, the wildfire-prone country where my maternal family resides, the solution should have come from Beirut, with the available equipment and materials stationed at the most at-risk areas, and a plan of action ready for immediate roll-out. Close to 3,000 acres of precious land were claimed — not to mention damages, personal injuries and a firefighter’s life. The origin of the fires did not fall on Beirut, but the inability to act appropriately did; namely, on its politicians.

This was crisis number one.

October protests 

The fires were symptomatic of “leaders’ corruption, dysfunction and indifference”, wrote famed author Joumana Haddad in The New York Times. But by the end of the month, it wasn’t just about the blazes. An absurd proposition to place a tax on tobacco, petrol, and especially WhatsApp voice calls – of $6 per month – led to thousands of people taking to the streets, culminating in the thawra, or the ‘revolution’, the largest anti-government protest in over a decade, led by grassroots activists.

When I went to Beirut for Christmas and met some of the revolution’s leaders, one of them explained the significance of the WhatsApp tax proposition: “Free WhatsApp is what connects us. If you take that away from us you are limiting our ability to speak, our capacity to communicate with each other. You are taking the only thing we have left.” This was just the latest insult to a population crippled by a debt to GDP ratio of 150% (the third highest in the world), youth unemployment of 37% and more than one in four people living below the poverty line. And so both rich and poor, young and old, Muslims and Christians, demonstrated for days and weeks, eventually congregating around dozens of tents erected in Martyr’s Square. Some of the protests turned violent, resulting in shattered windows and graffiti splashed on walls, including on those of the UN’s regional headquarters in Riyadh el-Solh, where I worked.

This was crisis number two. 

Devaluation of the Lebanese Lira 

When I left Lebanon in August 2019, the conversion rate from dollars to liras had been stable for years, at $1 = 1,500 LL. It really did not matter what currency one paid in, although in hindsight the Central Bank’s conversion rate — which some have accused of creating a Ponzi scheme — was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. When I returned in late December, the Lebanese Lira had devalued to around 2,000 LL to the dollar, and people were already very concerned.

Now, $1 is worth close to 8,000 LL in the black market. No transfers abroad are allowed, while citizens wanting to get cash out in dollars are limited to $100 per week. People’s salaries are being paid in liras, resulting in pay cuts of more than half of their original value. Basic foodstuffs and commodities have become more expensive. No one is hiring, worsening overall unemployment, which before the currency crisis already stood at 25%. One Forbes article has called it the “worst economic crisis in modern history.” Residents there agree.

Back in May, one aunt told me over the phone that “this is worse than the Civil War [1975-1990]. At least during that time the banks were working, even if bombs were falling. Now there is nothing left. People are dying of hunger.” To get a sense of how badly things are going, last month Lebanon’s most prestigious hospital, the American University of Beirut Medical Centre, fired around 850 employees in the nursing and administrative departments citing financial difficulties. In the middle of a global pandemic. 

This was crisis number three.

Covid-19 and the humanitarian crisis

With eyes on Iran and developments in other Mediterranean countries, the government reacted surprisingly quickly. By the end of March, and with fewer than 400 cases, the country was in partial lockdown. Additional curfews followed as cases grew. Compared to how things have developed elsewhere, Lebanon has done well, with around 7,000 cases and less than 100 deaths to date. But this success hangs by a thread. It is sustained by international organisations and a handful of civil societies that are at the frontlines in those places the government does not go: refugee camps and other poor neighbourhoods like the Shatila camps, areas bereft of any governmental medical assistance that have long been in dire need of humanitarian aid. 

In the spring I spoke to Dr. Kamel Mohanna, founder of Amel Association International, a leading, non-sectarian Lebanese NGO created in 1979 that has since operated field hospitals, maternity wards and development centres all over the country. Dr. Kamel explained how Amel is detecting Covid-19 cases and organising spaces for isolation in collaboration with the UNHCR, private hospitals in the Beqaa region and some public ones in Beirut. Amel’s mobile health units (MHUs) regularly organise visits in the most at-risk areas of the city to identify suspicious cases, then physicians take swabs and personally transport them back to the University of St. Joseph Hospital. “When you work in the humanitarian sector, you prepare yourself for the worst,” Dr. Kamel noted. “Up until now we have succeeded in managing this virus. Our worry is an explosion in cases.”

That has not happened – yet. 

According to the UNHCR, Beirut is home to almost one quarter of the 800,000 registered Syrian refugees in the country, in addition to most of the 200,000 Palestinians living in Lebanon. The country hosts around 1.5 million Syrian refugees and has the most refugees per capita in the world, a title it has held consistently since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. In addition, it hosts over 250,000 migrant domestic workers; most of them women who often live in poverty, if not residing with their employees. A coronavirus outbreak in any one of these neighbourhoods could be disastrous. If Covid-19 has been an ugly reminder of the inequalities embedded in societies all over the world, nowhere will this become more obvious than in Lebanon. For if and when the pandemic gets out of hand, it will become the crisis of the neglected, urban poor. 

This was crisis number four.

August Explosions

The second explosion that rocked the capital last week was the third greatest explosion recorded in human history after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, felt all the way in Cyprus. The blast of 2,750 unsecured tons of ammonium nitrate has caused the known deaths of more than 170 people, injured 6,000 others, destroyed or damaged 300,000 households and generated an estimated 5 to 10 billion dollars in damages. Hundreds of people remain unaccounted for, while thousands more are currently displaced. The loss of life is incomprehensible. The task ahead to re-build and recover is insurmountable.

Beyond the feelings of shock and disbelief, people are understandably furious; it appears officials knew about the explosive material stored next to residential areas six years earlier, and did nothing about it. To add insult to injury the explosion hit hardest in the strongest economic areas of the city – Gemmayzeh, Achrafiyeh and Downtown Beirut, home to the trendy bars and restaurants, the luxury shops and malls, the areas tourists go to when they only have three days to visit. These neighbourhoods are either partially or completely destroyed, cemented in ash. With the port gone, questions remain as to how the country can offer its people basic commodities like oil and grain; 80% of its products are imported. 

This was the final crisis.

Beirut’s catastrophic year 

In the words of a dear cousin of mine, ma fi balad: “there is no country left”. I interpret this in the same way I look at the apocalyptic explosion that mushroomed out of the capital’s port: the latest blow, just the very tip of a melting iceberg that has been drowning under the weight of political chaos, corruption and sectarianism in this small, beautiful country. 

These crises can be as seen as symptomatic of the disconnect between the country’s leaders and its people, the rift between the ruling elite and the working middle class, the complete disregard for the urban poor. These fractures have all led to the kind of non-inclusive politics and extractive economic systems that feature centre stage in Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson’s opus Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. This is not to say that other issues have not factored into these crises, such as the realities of geo-politics, the historical remnants of French colonial rule, or the relative scarcity of natural resources. But the fact that the ‘Paris of the Middle East’ still suffers from daily electricity shortages has little to do with any of these. 

When French President Emmanuel Macron visited the capital last week and proposed “a new political pact” for the country, I was initially sceptical, reminiscent as those words were of colonial ideas of wealthier nations coming to the aid of other ‘helpless’ ones. But in a country that has been marred in a myriad of crises —mostly of its leaders’ making — and in a city that has lived through one of its most catastrophic years, Macron’s words may be the healing balm its people need.  With the government now dissolved, new protests in the streets and with renewed acts of solidarity that are so unique to the Lebanese people, perhaps some of these wrongs may finally be corrected.

***

Alexia Faus Onbargi is the Europe and MENA Coordinator at Oxford Urbanists. Originally from Barcelona, she is studying towards an MPhil in Development Studies at the University of Oxford, and is a fellow of the ‘La Caixa’ Foundation (2019-2021). She has been published by the United Nations in Beirut, the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, and the Cambridge-based publication Manara Magazine.

In his essay ‘The Phantasm of the Apocalypse,’ Anton Kaes says that the fascination with urban dystopia and destruction can be traced back to the Bible. “Only complete devastation and erasure of the old assures, as in the Book of Revelation, a new utopia,” he writes. 

The UK-based German scholar points out that the pre-existing ideas of modernity make us view ‘slums’ in a similar manner, where only complete erasure of the previous can lead to what we perceive as development, not realising that the doom is in the everyday, that it exists and grows around us continually.

***

On April 1, 2020, Dharavi recorded its first case of the novel coronavirus. Within days, Asia’s largest slum, located at the heart of India’s financial capital, Mumbai, turned into a COVID-19 hotspot. The city’s municipal corporation announced a complete lockdown, ordering the residents indoors. But social distancing was impossible.

Spread over 2.4 square kilometers, Dharavi is one of the most densely-populated areas of India. With single-story and low-rise informal tenements lined along its labyrinthine bylanes, it houses over 850,000 people. The shacks, no bigger than 8x8 square feet, often have up to 10 people crammed in. Most of them are daily wagers and migrants, employed in the informal sector, working in the factories and workshops housed in the multi-story tenements within Dharavi. In the absence of water pipelines, the residents pay Rs 25 ($ 0.3) per gallon for water, provided by tankers for everyday use. Close to 80 percent of the population shares 450 community toilets.

So once it arrived in Dharavi, the virus instantly spun out of control. By the end of April, 491 cases had been recorded and May saw the number cross 1,400 with over 56 deaths. Experts feared that the density and proximity, coupled with hygiene issues and lack of healthcare systems, would turn Dharavi into a graveyard. “Unless we rehabilitate slums and develop an entire health infrastructure in these places, we are not doing justice to the common man in this city,” said the state minister for housing, Jitendra Awhad.

Kaes’ theory especially holds true for Dharavi. Its redevelopment has remained on every state government’s agenda for almost six decades, but each subsequent government has overlooked how the living conditions at the slum deteriorated year after year. Instead, every redevelopment plan — and there have been several — aims to raze Dharavi and build skyscrapers that will accommodate the current residents and create space for high-end residential complexes and commercial establishments like offices, malls, etc.

But noted urban planners, architects, sociologists and academicians, who have been studying Mumbai, insist the government reconsider its slum rehabilitation policies that hold a narrow view of modernity and development. They evoke the absence of spatial justice in governmental schemes for addressing the city’s housing issues.

Neera Adarkar points out that the current schemes, created under the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), do little to improve the overall living conditions of the poor. “By cramming the residents of a slum in skyscrapers, we are merely creating vertical slums,” she adds. A Mumbai-based architect and urban planner, Adarkar has been studying the city’s public sector housing for several decades.

Adarkar’s fear is rooted in the existing examples of slum development housing that dot the city’s landscape. “The market-driven policy favours a handful of builders,” she stresses. Under the current SRA policy, introduced in 1991, private developers receive incentives to build 300-square-feet tenements that are given free of cost to slum dwellers that originally occupied the land. After the construction of these towers, the developers are left with a majority of the land to build high-end residential towers on. They do not pay for the land but their profit margin includes a return on the market value of the land upon the sale of the apartments.

“Ownership of houses is attractive to the slum dweller but this policy benefits only the developers,” Adarkar says. The SRA towers are a mere six metres apart, usually a gutter flowing between the structures. “Ninety percent of occupants do not get adequate sunlight or ventilation. The narrow corridors and elevator lobby are the only common areas,” she argues. “In comparison, the street corners, shops, common water resources or small patches of vacant land within a slum organically emerge as relief areas for the residents, where they meet or celebrate festivals, thereby building a strong sense of community.”

The mandated open spaces on the patch of redeveloped land are reserved for the high-end residential complexes. The residents are provided with facilities like gardens, jogging tracks, clubhouse or a swimming pool, where the developer charges them extra for these ‘luxuries.’ Often considered a security threat by their privileged neighbours, the slum dwellers are kept out of these gated communities. Thus the original occupants face systematic exclusion, widening the gap between the haves and have-nots. The redevelopment also breaks up the community that, for many, had so far worked as a support system in absence of families.

The market-driven approach towards housing lies in stark contrast to the policies that supported public housing in Mumbai earlier. The tradition dates back to colonial rule when the British set up textile mills in the city. In an attempt to turn the city (then called Bombay) into a vibrant business centre and port, the government invited bankers, merchants, artisans and labourers, providing incentives, including the promise of religious freedom. This perhaps explains the cosmopolitan nature of present-day Mumbai. As the cotton trade boomed, the number of mills increased: by the 1870s, Mumbai was home to 70 mills, employing nearly 60,000 workers. In her study, academician Amita Bhide points out that the areas where the labouring classes lived were overcrowded and unsanitary. These low-lying central districts remained permanently waterlogged and were “liable to be permeated by disease microbes, creating a favourable ecology for the spread of malaria and plague.” 

The outbreak of the Bombay Plague in 1896 launched the colonial approach to housing in the city. The pandemic began in one of the densely-populated neighbourhoods and soon spread. Bhide states in her study that the plague drove out 500,000 of the inhabitants, including 20 to 30 percent of its mill workers, thereby crippling the city’s commercial and industrial activities. The death rates in working-class neighbourhoods climbed as high as 12.5 percent. “Finding solutions to the problems of overcrowding and unsanitary housing became matters of critical importance if Bombay was to continue fulfilling the required functions of the imperial agenda,” she writes.

Charged with the task of cleaning up the city, Bombay Improvement Trust (BIT) was set up in 1898. It built avenues across the city to open up its landlocked central and eastern neighbourhoods to sea breeze and expanded its limits to introduce the suburbs of Dadar and Matunga. With the constant expansion of its borders, these neighbourhoods today lie at the centre of the city.

The Trust also got on to the job of building affordable housing through construction of chawls. These were up to five-storied residential tenements with single- or double-room units lining a long corridor that served also as a balcony. Located at either end of the corridor, the common toilets were shared by the residents. The key typology of public housing in Bombay, chawls had existed before the pandemic, too, under both public and private ownership. 

While the public housing solution by BIT was by no means sufficient or ideal, it was far more progressive in terms of spatial justice in comparison to the current SRA housing. The Trust drafted a set of rules for development that determined the proportion of the buildings’ footprint to its size and the maximum number of floors it could have, among other design rules. Veteran architect Kamu Iyer, in his book Boombay: From Precincts to Sprawl, says the Trust laid down a rule that each chawl unit be provided with an eight-and-a-half-feet window, upwards from the floor, in order to allow light and ventilation to the boarders, most of who slept on the floor.

Another important mandate, introduced in 1912, was the ‘63.5 degree light angle rule’. “Planners in England found that the open space in a plot, derived from an angle of 63.5 degrees, ensured adequate light and ventilation on the lowest floor,” Iyer writes. The BIT also insisted that the space outside the tenements match, if not exceed, the space inside it. Most of these chawls were C-shaped, with an open ground at its heart. The area between the chawls, the ground and the shared balconies connecting the units thus became the common spaces.

In 1926, the BIT was merged with Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC), which continues to be the key agency managing the city of Mumbai. In the 1960s, the BMC introduced the Development Control Rules, which brought in the concept of Floor Space Index (FSI). In Iyer’s words, it is “an abstract idea that changed the form of the city from a predictable one to a negotiable one… Architects who felt freed from prescribed footprints and volumes ultimately negotiated the bye-laws to build with little or no regard for the neighbourhood or the city.” 

Imposition of FSI, which dominates the building rules of Mumbai, means that the open spaces in a complex should be relative to the height of the building. It thereby promotes the idea of skyscrapers as the key typography.   

***

Slums entered the cityscape only after the 1960s. Bhide points out: “the colonial city of Bombay registered a very small proportion of slums, that is, less than five percent. The primary strategy of the colonial government was to push undesirable developments to the periphery, as was done in the case of tanneries in the beginning of the 20th century like in the case of Dharavi.”

As market-focussed policies took form, housing became unaffordable to many, especially the migrants who started to flow into the city after Independence. “While the legal meaning of slum focused on inadequate, overcrowded housing and lack of infrastructure, in reality, the meaning of slum that evolved in Mumbai was encroachment and settlement on lands that were considered undesirable and often dangerous for residence, such as pavements, areas adjoining railway tracks, etc. Most of these were public lands,” Bhide adds. Dharavi, with its land sprawl, emerged to be Asia’s largest slum.

The plans for Dharavi’s redevelopment have been drawn and redrawn over the decades, in keeping with the SRA model. The first one came in 1985, when the then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi allotted 1 billion Rs for its redevelopment. Disbursed in parts over the next decade to Maharashtra Housing & Area Development Authority (MHADA), it was used to develop a part of the land, now known as Rajiv Gandhi Nagar. However, the project failed at several levels. Riddled with poor execution and scams, it did little to change the overall nature of Dharavi.

The latest plan, finalised and sanctioned by the previous state government in 2018, roped in Dubai-based Seclink Group, after they won a global bid for the revamp, estimated to cost Rs 26,000 crore. The residents will be provided 300-square-feet tenements in towers and a large part of the 50 million square feet saleable built-up space will be used for commercial and economic activity, thereby making the plan “viable.”

Experts believe that Dharavi’s redevelopment needs a user-driven approach. Urbanologist Rahul Srivastava adds that such typography is hostile to its residents. “Imagine such a structure during an earthquake or a natural calamity,” he stresses. “During the ongoing pandemic situation, slum residents at least had the option to step out into the concessional spaces. An overcrowded high rise unit is inhumane.” He has been heading URBZ, an experimental action and research collective with a special focus on public spaces and housing.

***

Srivastava believes that proximity, more than density, poses a bigger risk during COVID-19. “A popular bar, with hundreds of patrons inside, is more likely to expedite the virus spread. Or an elevator in a high rise, crammed with residents.” Adarkar adds that in the older public housing typographies, like chawls, balconies served as sleeping spaces. “But in today’s apartment units, home quarantine will be impossible if the livable space is shared by so many.”

The answer, many say, lies in allowing user-generated solutions. Akhtar Chauhan, for instance, stresses on low- and mid-rise mixed-use spaces. The academician, who was part of the organising committee of Reinventing Dharavi, an international ideas competition, in 2018, roots for such spaces. “The informal economy in Dharavi relies on the workshops within the area. The workers, many of whom are migrants, either sleep in open spaces or shared shacks. Structures with residences in the lower floors and partially covered workshops on the terrace can double as spaces for the workers to sleep,” he says, adding that the state needs to take up a bigger responsibility of providing adequate public housing.

Adarkar says that rebuilding Dharavi may not be required. Some areas simply need upgrading — water supply, sanitation and health infrastructure. She also suggests “reorganisation of certain plots” where a small group of users get together and bring on board a builder, with specifications based on their use. “It will require a network of community leaders, local politicians and activists to create the awareness and understanding among the residents to achieve this. But it will be a far better model in case of calamities or pandemics.”

Adarkar may have a point. While the virus rages on unabated in Mumbai’s overcrowded suburbs and high-rises, Dharavi has witnessed a steady decline in the number of cases. It took constant efforts by the BMC, in tandem with the local community, NGOs and health workers, to educate the residents about the disease, need for testing, sanitisation and distancing in order to bring the situation under control. The consistent coverage by Indian and international media helped as the government redirected its resources to bring the situation in Dharavi under control.    

Srivastava points out that one should not need a crisis to realise the grim healthcare and hygiene situation in Mumbai, the everyday doom of its residents. He hopes that this important lesson regarding Mumbai’s housing situation will not be forgotten. 

“We are conceited as urban practitioners to think design alone can bring change. What we need is a move towards building a healthy habitat, one that has more community toilets everywhere, equitable housing, open spaces,” he said. “We all know this but the question to ask is whether the varying interests of lobbies and those in power will allow it to happen?”  

***

Dipti Nagpaul is an independent journalist and researcher. The Mumbai-based journalist, associated with several mainstream media houses, writes on the politics of culture.  

Case Study: Brazilian cities

In the first half of 2020, the world as we know it was changed by the SARS-Cov-2 virus, known as COVID-19, leading to the infection of millions of people and the death of thousands worldwide by the date of this article’s publication. As we know, COVID-19 is a virus that is easily transmitted therefore the high need for prevention and frequent hand hygiene and the use of facial masks by the population (WHO, 2020). Yet when we look at the case of Brazil —where the daily death toll is now the highest in the world — there are a lot of social-economic problems that may restrict virus prevention and allow it to scatter among people faster.

Economic inequality also translates into an inequality in access to water and sanitation, increasing risks of disease transmission (UNESCO, UN-Water, 2020).  In the last few decades, the progress toward improving access to hand-washing has been accelerated, an importance echoed in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 6, which looks to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all (SDG, 2020). Globally, in 2019, 26.1% of the global population, lacked access to hand-washing with available soap and water (Brauer et at., 2020).                                                              

In 2018, 68.3% of Brazilians households had access to basic sanitation treatment and 6.8% of the population, aged 15 or up, were illiterate. Due to an accelerated and not well-implemented urbanization program, the slums — also known as “favelas” — have spread throughout Brazilian cities. These small districts are characterized as a reflection of inequality and rapid urbanization, which led to a lack of infrastructure planning to receive citizens coming from more remote areas who were looking for job opportunities in big capitals, as is the case of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. According to the IBGE data from 2010, the HDI (Human Development Index) of São Paulo was 0.805 and in Rio de Janeiro was 0.799. Households with access to basic sanitation treatment represented 92.6% in São Paulo and 94.4% in Rio de Janeiro. And the index of children literacy between 6 and 14-year-old was 96% in São Paulo and 96.9% in Rio de Janeiro. Both cities do not represent a big variation comparing their indicators, and they are also known for being home of some of Brazil’s largest favelas.             

In this article, two favelas will be discussed: the Paraisópolis (São Paulo) and Rocinha (Rio de Janeiro). These favelas have a high concentration of citizens living there, with HDI bellow 0.70 and with a significantly elevated number of deaths from COVID-19, Paraisópolis – Vila Andrade (63) and Rocinha (47) (May 27th, SMS-SP (2020); June 9th, DATA RIO (2020)). Due to the emergence of the virus, the vulnerability of social groups that already suffered from urban inequality has increased. Whether or not people have the right to have access to sanitation is one of the factors that ensures greater or lesser protection against the virus.

Residents of peripheries and favelas, as well as homeless people, are those who suffer most from such inequality. In this context, it is necessary to have drinkable water and sanitation as part of the welfare state and public policies. Due to this social context, it is significant to discuss the effects of sanitation and access to education in favelas from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in order to focus on the importance of regional development policy — not only emphasizing on times of a pandemic, but also to highlight the need for socioeconomic inclusion for the city's sustainable development.

The Urbanization and Sanitation Development in Brazil

According to the IAS report (2020), since 1940, Brazil underwent major social, economic, and political transformations resulting in large and lasting effects on basic sanitation. Brazilian cities grew with the arrival of immigrants and the migration of the rural population to urban areas, strongly impacting the services and housing infrastructures. The dissemination of the sanitation service as a local interest grew more complex from the urbanization process of cities throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Urban areas started to expand, ignoring the political and administrative limits of the municipalities.

But during the administration of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the Concessions Law (1995) created new rules for the operation of public services. In the early 2000s, under President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, the water and sanitation subject were encouraged by the creation of new laws, ministries, and programs. In 2008, the Pacto pelo Saneamento Básico: Mais saúde, qualidade de vida e cidadania (BRASIL, 2008) was enacted, which, in 2014, culminated in the Federative Pact to universalize access to basic sanitation services by 2033.

The initial goals predicted 100% drinkable water supplied in the country by 2023 and 92% of sewage treated by 2033. The United Nations Convention that recognizes basic sanitation as a human right separate from the right to drinkable water brought important legal and institutional reinforcement to the sanitation-related agenda in 2015. However, in Brazil, the problem with these laws is in implementation, since most of the sanitation plans were made between 2011 and 2013 when there was a prospect of universalizing water supply and sanitation in 20 years. But now, with the political and fiscal crisis of the state and federal government after 2016, these plans have been put on hold. Considering the structural measures necessary for sanitation, it is estimated that R$597,9 billions (US$ 122 billions) of investments will be needed in the period from 2019 to 2033 for universal sanitation in the country (IAS, 2020).       

The case of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro: Paraisópolis and Rocinha

When we focus on the impacts of COVID-19 in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, there were 40,017 (Painel Rio, 2020) confirmed cases in Rio de Janeiro and 83,076 in São Paulo (SAEDE, 2020) by June 11. The pandemic crisis made even more visible the enormous inequality that marks the urban space of these cities, with poor favelas and peripheries experiencing the lack of water and basic sanitation, with precarious homes, without ventilation and many people living in small spaces. In 2019 (IBGE, 2020) there were 7.09% of households living in subnormal agglomerations in São Paulo and 12.63% in Rio de Janeiro.                                                      

In São Paulo, Paraisópolis (district of Vila Andrade) is located in the South Zone of the city, it has more than 100,000 inhabitants and 21,000 households in an area of 10 km². It is considered the second-largest slum in São Paulo. (G1, 2019). According to Atlas Brasil (2010) the IDH-Municipality of Paraisópolis was 0.639. Also, it is estimated that 96% of the households have access to a private toilet and strained water, 29% of the population is in a situation of poverty, and the average monthly income is R$ 469 (US$95).                                      

In a preventive approach to fight COVID-19, the Justice of São Paulo granted on April 7 an injunction that determined that the Basic Sanitation Company of the State of São Paulo (Sabesp) should supply water to all the favelas in the municipality served by the supply company. The company also had already put into practice some measures to benefit low-income families, such as the exemption from paying the bills of more than 2 million customers registered in the social tariff (the measure is valid for 90 days, from April 1) and distribution of more than 1,900 water tanks to residents who are unable to buy water tanks (Agência Brasil, 2020).

In Rio de Janeiro, Rocinha is also located in the South Zone of the city and is known as one of the biggest favelas in Brazil. According to the last IBGE (2020) census, there are about 25,742 households, and about 70,000 people living there. The favela started to grow when nordestinos and mineiros came from the northeast part of the country to the Rio de Janeiro to start working on big construction projects in the city, in a process of rapid urbanization and lack of public organization. According to the Atlas Brasil (2010), the IDH-Municipality of Rocinha was 0.662. Thus, it is estimated that 98% of the households have access to a private toilet and strained water, 29% of the population were in a situation of poverty and the average monthly income was R$ 525 (US$107). According to a study conducted by Casa Fluminense (2019), more than 2,200 hospitalizations were registered in 2018, due to diseases caused by the lack of basic sanitation. The study also shows that, if the nine main sewage treatment plants were to function fully, it would be possible to avoid the dumping of around 276 Olympic sewage pools in Guanabara Bay daily.

People living without basic sanitation earn lower wages than the population with access to water, sewage collection, and treatment. They are also more vulnerable to common diseases in areas where this infrastructure does not exist or is precarious, which adds to public health expenditures. Trata Brasil (2016) estimated that investments in sanitation sustained 142 thousand jobs per year in the country and generated R$ 13.6 billion (US$ 2.77 billion) per year of income in the Brazilian economy between 2004 and 2016. Meaning that for every R$1.00 (US$ 0.20) invested in jobs related to sanitation, an income of R$1.22 (US$0.29) was generated to the economy, a relationship that shows the income multiplier effect of investments in sanitation.

Considering employability and education, it is estimated that workers who lived in areas without access to proper sanitation had on average 6.8% lower wages than those who, with the same conditions of employability, lived in places with proper sanitation. In addition to the challenges with productivity, there are challenges with backwardness. As schooling positively affects workers' productivity and income, lower schooling means a loss in productivity and work remuneration. If access to proper sanitation and drinkable water services is given to a student who currently does not have these services, a 3.6% reduction in school delay is expected. This increases the labor productivity of future generations, affecting their standard of living.

Challenges to Overcome the Sanitation Problem while Fighting COVID-19

In sum, when we look at the local communities’ development, it is necessary to have a coordination of the local governments to define the goals of the expansion of basic sanitation and its sources of financing. The mayors and city councils need to take a leading role in municipal planning and inspection of contracts, acting to monitor and demand compliance with the established goals. Another important component is the strengthening of regulation with the definition of standards for the provision of the service. In this sense, the whole process must guarantee information transparency, stimulating a new cycle of citizen monitoring on the goals, deadlines, and efficiency. This kind of planning and coordinating is not an easy task, but there is no shortcut to advance into the basic sanitation agenda and towards the Sustainable Development Goals. 

The future post-pandemic is still uncertain. Some of the measures to fight COVID-19 depend on the local, state, and federal government policies to help the population's needs. It is significant to call attention to the necessities of each locality which ends up requiring different attention and effort from the government. However, there are public policies that should be highlighted as the importance of the Unified Health System (SUS) in Brazil. In times of crisis, the state has the responsibility, together with the private institutions, to ensure clear and efficient answers to the population as a whole.                                                                                  

Another important agent is the civil society, with initiatives led by NGOs, community organizations, and other agents with actions as the distribution of basic food baskets for those who have lost income, and distribution of hygiene kits to reduce the contamination. During the pandemic, NGOs and social leaders who know the reality of these favelas are important actors to solve local problems and to demand public policies for water supply, basic sanitation, health, and education. Therefore, supporting and strengthening the work of community organizations is a fundamental task, during and after the crisis. 

It should also be taken into consideration that President Jair Bolsonaro, as the country's chief of the executive, should have been playing his most active role in fighting the virus. However, since the beginning of the crisis, he has flouted isolation measures, considered the disease as a “little flu” and has put less attention on Brazil’s rising death toll because, according to him, death is “everybody’s destiny.” The president denies the seriousness of a pandemic that has already killed tens of thousands of people worldwide in just a few months. His actions end up generating political instabilities between other political actors and civic society.  

Even though the Bolsonaro administration has always put first the importance of the economy, a plan with measures to assure citizens safety outside their homes should have been developed since the pandemic started. People could come back to work, but they would do that if they were protected, using masks and with other protectives measures developed to assure their lives’ protection when they had to leave their home to go to their workplace. It is known that it is necessary to build economic measures to resume employment and generate income. But all this requires the dialogue capacity and political coordination between governmental actors. The president should have been playing a leading role in uniting the country.

That is what the Brazilians need at this moment.

*** 

Ingrid Rafaele Rodrigues Leiria is an economist with a MSc in Economics from Unisinos University, Brazil. She is currently a PhD Candidate in Apply Microeconometrics Policy in the Department of Economics and Statistics at Korea University, South Korea. Her researches and writings are focused on Latin American Countries, Microeconomic Policy, Public Policy and Local Development. 

***

References:                                                                                                                           

Agência Brasil, (2020). Justiça determina que Sabesp forneça água para todas as favelas de SP. Available in: https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/justica/noticia/2020-04/justica-determina-que-sabesp-forneca-agua-para-todas-favelas-de-sp                                                                                       

Atlas Brasil, (2010). Atlas do Desenvolvimento Humano do Brasil. Available in: http://atlasbrasil.org.br/2013/pt/perfil_udh/27333

BRASIL.(2008). Pacto Nacional pelo Saneamento Básico: Mais Saúde, Qualidade de Vida e Cidadania. Resolução Recomendada N° 62, de 3 de Dezembro de 2008. Available in: <https://www.cidades.gov.br/images/stories/ArquivosSNSA/Arquivos_PDF/PACTO_-_ PLANSAB_-_20081216_Final_Internet.pdf>. 

Brauer, M.; Zhao, J. T,; Bennitt, F. B.,and Stanaway, J. D. (2020). Global Access to Handwashing: Implications for COVID-19 Control in Low-Income Countries. Environmental Health Perspectives 128:5 CID: 057005 https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP7200

CASA FLUMINENSE, (2019). Região Metropolitana do RJ teve 2.208 internações em 2018 por falta de saneamento, diz estudo. Available in: https://casafluminense.org.br/regiao-metropolitana-do-rj-teve-2-208-internacoes-em-2018-por-falta-de-saneamento/

DATA RIO, (2020). Painel Rio COVID-19. Available in: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/38efc69787a346959c931568bd9e2cc4

G1, (2019). Paraisópolis é a 2ª maior comunidade de São Paulo e moradores pedem ações sociais há pelos menos 10 anos. Available in: https://g1.globo.com/sp/sao-paulo/noticia/2019/12/01/paraisopolis-e-a-2a-maior-comunidade-de-sao-paulo-e-moradores-pedem-acoes-sociais-ha-pelos-menos-10-anos.ghtml

IBGE, (2010). Censo Demográfico 2010. Available in: https://censo2010.ibge.gov.br       

IBGE, (2020). Censo Demográfico 2019 – in development. Available in: https://socecodem-ibgedgc.hub.arcgis.com/app/ac337eeee5164c0daa9c99f8689ad3f8

IAS – INSTITUTO ÁGUA E SANEAMENTO. (2020). Saneamento 2020: Passado, Presente e Possibilidades de Futuro para o Brasil. ISBN: 978-65-990908-0-6. Available in: https://www.aguaesaneamento.org.br/saneamento-2020/                                                          

Painel Rio, (2020). COVID-19 Boletim update from the City of Rio de Janeiro. Available in: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/38efc69787a346959c931568bd9e2cc4

SEADE, (2020). Coronavirus Update in São Paulo. Available in: https://www.seade.gov.br/coronavirus/

SDG – Sustainable Development Goals. (2020). Global SDG Indicator Platform. Available in https://sdg.tracking-progress.org/indicator/6-3-1-proportion-of-safely-treated-domestic-wastewater-flows/#                                                                                                  

SMS-SP, (2020). COVID-19 Relatório Situacional. Secretaria Municipal da Saúde. Available in: https://www.seade.gov.br/coronavirus/      

Sugiyama, N., & Hunter, W. (2020). Do Conditional Cash Transfers Empower Women? Insights from Brazil’s Bolsa Família. Latin American Politics and Society, 62(2), 53-74. doi:10.1017/lap.2019.60

Trata Brasil, (2016). Benefícios Econômicos e Sociais da Expansão do Saneamento Brasileiro. Available in: http://www.tratabrasil.org.br/images/estudos/itb/beneficios/Press_Release_-_Benef%C3%ADcios_do_saneamento_no_Brasil.pdf

UNESCO, UN-Water, (2020). United Nations World Water Development Report 2020. Water and Climate Change, Paris, UNESCO. Available in: https://en.unesco.org/themes/water-security/wwap/wwdr/2020

World Health Organization (WHO). (‎2020)‎. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) advice for the public. Available in: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public

Case Study: All cities

The anti-racist and anti-police protests that have erupted in the United States and worldwide over the last week, amidst the backdrop of the worst pandemic in a century, pose a critical opportunity to ask what cities will look like after this. We are in the middle of incredibly important debates and struggles about the future of public health and public safety, all while heading full-on into what appears to be an economic depression. This is a moment unlike any other to talk about the role technology and major tech companies will play in shaping how we come out of these crises.

It is all but guaranteed that the big tech firms — Google, Amazon, Facebook etc. — will pitch themselves to cities as the saviours with solutions to the triple-barrelled public health, public safety, and economic crises. Their offer will be safety, security and shared profits in exchange for surveillance. In the coming months, where to deploy and how to govern technology will come to critical junctures, because the solutions to these interrelated crises are likely to be tech-infused. And these junctures will have significant implications for urban life over the next few decades.

Surveillance-Based Solutions to Public Health and Economic Recovery

Cities have decisions to make about whether they outsource the responsibility for public health to the companies that manufacture phones, smart homes, and wearable tech, like smart watches. The deal would be that by allowing companies to monitor our movements and develop products based on the insights they can derive from this monitoring, these companies will keep us safe from the spread of diseases and make us physically healthier. The former is the idea behind contact tracing apps developed by Apple and Google, as well as others, which cities have thus far been hesitant to adopt.

Monitoring in post-Covid-19 cities will not be limited just to the devices we carry, however. The dream for companies like Sidewalk Labs, the Google sister company headed by Michael Bloomberg’s former deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff, is to have sensors on streetlights and in parks so that they can gather data on a scale way beyond what we have today. Sidewalk Labs promises that these sensors will allow them to build cities that are more sustainable, safe, and profitable. There is a high probability that surveillance technology will be integrated into the next generation of urban infrastructure — and the fallout from the pandemic may well accelerate this deployment.

Sidewalk Labs recently walked away from a project to build a futuristic smart city in Toronto. The company envisioned a downtown neighbourhood filled with sensors, which would enable innovative experiments on residents and passers-by that the company hoped would lead to profitable innovations. Sidewalk Labs even promised to share the profits from innovations developed based on this urban data with the city. The project fell through in no small part because of fierce resistance from Torontonians fearful of the amount of power this project would have given Sidewalk Labs and Google over the city’s future. 

Sidewalk Labs supporter and Toronto resident Richard Florida attributed the failure of the Toronto project to outdated governance structures. Bianca Wylie, a tech expert and a major critic of the project, said Sidewalk Labs pulling out was the result of government oversight functioning in the messy way it is supposed to. That Florida went on to say that Sidewalk Labs’ vision would work better in Detroit or Pittsburgh than Toronto is a sign that these kinds of futuristic proposals feed off of desperation by targeting places without the resources to adequately fund public services or to thoroughly vet tech company’s proposals. The decision by Governor Andrew Cuomo to name former Alphabet CEO Eric Schmidt as head of the team that will “reimagine” the state of New York after the pandemic shows that the struggle over surveillance in the post-Covid-19 city is just heating up.

Anti-Racist Uprisings Change the Surveillance Conversation

The uprisings sparked by the Minneapolis police’s murder of George Floyd have highlighted the dark side of surveillance that may have otherwise looked more appealing than usual because of the pandemic. With the violence enacted against civilians by police, people are more likely to be skeptical about who should have potential access to your location at all times, especially as police unleash new surveillance tech. For states, however, these uprisings may mean they see the potential for a symbiotic relationship with big tech firms. If the priority is state security, then partnering with surveillance tech producers might be in their best interest. Companies, like the pseudo-essential lockdown service Zoom, are already cosying up to law enforcement because that is, currently, the profitable thing to do. The uprisings may simultaneously spread public distrust of surveillance tech while growing state support of it.

The growing calls to defund police may play into the hands of surveillance capitalists. Faced with pressure to reduce spending on police in a time of economic instability and recession, city leaders may lean on surveillance tech as a cheap and easy alternative to real transformation of the systems supposed to keep communities safe. Surveillance systems are sure to be less physically violent than police officers. This could save mayors and governors the embarrassment of having to respond to yet another violent viral video. 

Unfortunately, surveillance is just a more effective means of suppressing dissent and sweeping problems under the rug, rather than a way to address root causes. Less violence might bring more legitimacy to systems that continue to uphold structural racism and inequality while simultaneously siphoning off resources that could go to community building and alleviate those same systemic issues. For the record, there was uncertainty about whether Sidewalk Labs’ proposed innovations would actually save cities money. Regardless of contested financial facts, without considerable public pressure, policymakers may be much more willing to trust a handful of tech executives with billions in infrastructure funding than thousands of community groups with funding for community-based programming to ensure safety.

What are the potential alternatives?

Cities are facing unprecedented problems today. The big tech business model is to pitch yourself as the sole solution to the problem. Tech giants promise the moon, captivate our imaginations, and by the time we see whether these companies can deliver the goods, it will be too late to reverse course. In all likelihood, any problems that arise with the systems the tech giants create will be ones that only they have the capacity to address. And the cycle of corporate control continues.

There are no silver bullet solutions to the public health, public safety and economic crises. Cities need to figure out how to rebuild economies and communities after Covid-19, and tech is likely to be part of the recovery package. Open access to the urban data extracted is problematic if the same powerful corporate actors have the best ability to exploit that data. Public control of data is only appealing if public authorities can be trusted to protect civil liberties and human rights. Public accountability requires data oversight bodies with a sufficient mandate and enforcement capacity to be created. There may not be easy answers, but the scale of public resistance to injustice today is reason to be hopeful.

The prison and police abolition movements are growing in popularity, but need to be infused with a positive vision for how to regulate and deploy technology in order to be successful. This can happen if some of the energy that is driving uprisings is channeled into giving local communities the opportunity to define the problems they want addressed and giving them the resources to develop their own solutions. This is a future that we might be able to bring about with regulations that enable local control and/or accountability of tech and an expanded, more accessible conversation about tech and community building. 

As Joy Buolamwini of the Algorithmic Justice League puts it, “if you have a face, you have a place in this conversation.” We can regulate the tech sector in such a way that it must genuinely listen to and serve local communities. That way tech would play one part of a larger effort to address root causes, instead of a status quo which squeezes marginalized folks out of the process of finding solutions to the problems that are reaching a breaking point in cities around the world today.

Given enough time, human ingenuity will develop innovations (digital, social, structural or otherwise) that will optimize our systems to whatever set of values we want to dominate. Tech firms today are phenomenally good at developing technologies that will make them more profitable and powerful. Cities post-Covid-19 will be built according to whatever values we choose to guide us out of this crisis. So what sort of cities are we going to build? 

***

Dexter Docherty is the project lead of the Post-COVID-19 Urban Futures Project. He is an MSc student in Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation at the University of Oxford, working on surveillance, digital governance, and smart-cities. His interest in urban futures stems from prisoners’ rights work in Montreal and Ottawa that made him want to build more compassionate communities.

Case Study: Berlin; Hannover

Since the world paused in mid-March, Germany has been hailed for its response to coronavirus. Outlets from across the world — particularly American ones eager to cease any good news — have looked to explain a relatively low German death-to-infection rate.  The apparent German success and luck in taming COVID-19 is well-documented.

But what has not been? What everyday life is like as Germany gradually ‘reopens’ on the ground. Frankly, rules appear fungible, and social distancing is a farce.

Not to spoil the reopening party (masks optional), but if we’re going to learn anything about what the next few months or years may look like, it appears essential to question what reopening means now and in the future, especially as leaders and pundits have begun referring to Germany’s bout with coronavirus in the past tense. Let’s look at Hannover, the stale but tranquil provincial seat of Lower Saxony, vis-a-vis Berlin, the alternative misfit doubling as capital city.

***

In mid-March, freedoms taken for granted in the West disappeared overnight. Although some, like Bavaria, got a head start, all states agreed to march in lockstep with the federal government for a nationwide lockdown. Merkel, set to retire next year after a decade and a half in rule, framed coronavirus as a challenge for Germans to abide by the rules for each other’s sake. (It also helped that she has a background in science.)

German culture is known for being rule-abiding; I would add that it is not very rule-questioning, too. From a young age, German culture conditions an unwavering faith in structure, even in matters as simple as crossing the street. Expats like this New Yorker lose our camouflage at intersections. Merkel, in turn, saw her approval ratings soar to a record-high after the lockdown went into place.

So how was the lockdown? More straightforward, and not entirely shut. Borders closed, as were anything that could be conceived of as an entertainment venue, Flixbus, schools, restaurants, bars, fitness studios, spas and hair salons. Public transport and parks stayed open, with no restrictions on how frequently one could leave the house, unlike in many other countries. Whenever in public space, the rules were clear: no more than 2 people together (unless from the same household), avoid contact with anyone else, and grab a shopping cart at the grocery store.

Who or what enforced the rules? Embedded fear, plus glances from normally-cold fellow occupants of public space and deliberate public-facing police interventions. At the crowded pedestrian plaza in front of Hannover’s Machsee, for example, police vans blared megaphone instructions, while kiosk workers drew a chalk queue with 1.5 meter markings. In the popular Herrenhäuser Garten, mounted police berated what appeared to be a family of four, a scene I witnessed also in Berlin’s Tiergarten.

Although there were official sources, plenty of vital information arrived by hearsay. Something like: “So-and-so heard they’re going to reopen the schools in two weeks—I think they’re going to announce it on Wednesday.” Or, “apparently the Berlin Senate might open the bars again.”

***

Gradually, in a phased rollout, Germany has come back to life. First, on April 20, came certain semi-’essential’ shops, including barbers. More people out in public brought mask restrictions for public transport and within shops. Schools reopened on May 4, and restaurants and gyms have been following suit.

At a point in early May, the federal government, states, and civil society fell out of harmony. Extremist anti-government protests largely co-opted by the far-right Alternative für Deutschland began, while a unified German front across the states — and a consensus as to what the rules actually are — began to crack. Defaulting to pure federal structure makes local decision-making deliberate, but Germany refused to default to divisiveness when they purported to have righted the ship in March.

Now, each state is going at its chosen pace; some, including Thuringia, a hotbed of political crisis, want to lift restrictions entirely. At one point, Bavaria’s relatively proactive ruling bodies were debating which garden needs opening first, bier- or kinder-. A Bavarian mother tweeted that should biergartens open first, she’ll send her kids there instead.

If there’s anything to learn from America, state-independent rollouts breed contradictions without harmonious collaboration. Perhaps a grassroots, horizontal collaboration would be workable. Farm communities and urban tech hubs require different responses, but they can’t have contradictory ones. An example: as of May 21, Berlin no longer will enforce a 14-day quarantine for foreign arrivals. Perhaps this was a precursor to allowing tours from the 25th, but it is certainly unhelpful to nearby states where quarantines remain in effect. Jurisdictional headaches multiply by the day, but do new cases?

No leader alive has ever managed an event similar to the scale of the coronavirus, yet there is consensus that the concept of ‘phased reopening’ makes sense. For us laypeople, simple draconian life has certainly become far more complicated. For policymakers, here’s the key question: when you gradually roll back the rules, are the rules in that particular moment enforceable, especially when nobody knows what they really are?

Not everyone’s day involves obsessive-compulsive news reads—that also goes for polizei.  

Merkel agreed to roll back lockdown rules on the condition that they can easily be re-instituted again. Not only has that not been the case, it sure doesn’t feel that way on the ground. One prevailing attitude is “I probably got the virus already,” which is still prohibitively expensive to prove with an antibody test, if at all accurate. Universally, there has been this overwhelming sentiment: “Time to enjoy some renewed privileges with our pent-up energy.”

***

Has the social end to the pandemic arrived?

When I first imagined this piece in early May, the title was meant to juxtapose a normally unruly Berlin with a more stately, German experience in Hannover. Late April was just as everyone became collectively more lax; during my first week back in Berlin, I was even told to remove my mask in one of the late night Späti kiosks.

I had no idea the rest of Germany was also getting more relaxed, too. There were plenty of non-socially distanced crowds upon a subsequent return to Hannover. There are ‘two’ Germanies: the pandemic one in orchestrated rule harmony, and this new post-lockdown state, often occupying the same grounds in our cities. Perhaps this duality also extends to outside perception. Germany has a terrific reputation externally, one predicated on efficiency, order, calm, and sustainability, which this social rebellion questions. Coronavirus is still here, but Germany is going down the reopening conveyor belt in a disorderly fashion.

Another key question: if summer wasn’t on the horizon, would Europe reopen as quickly? Crowds flock to parks every sunny afternoon; people here act as if they’ve never seen the sun. To be fair, Northern European winter is especially bleak, a mandatory fast of sorts before long summer nights. (Impressive actual fasting: vendors in Berlin’s Turkish Market during Ramadan, on their feet with no food, drink or swearing from 4 AM to 9 PM). 

Still, ‘summer first’ makes for bold policy, especially if designing freedom around weather conditions becomes any sort of precedent. My girlfriend and I spent German Father’s Day biking around a Berlin lake. It was as if we traveled back through time to a summer we shouldn’t be in. Groups of 20-30 men brought out rolling speakers to blast techno and Deutschrap, chased down appropriately with a stream of warm pints. Granted, this was an exception, but groups of 8-10 friends in parks has quickly become the norm.

Why, anywhere, will there be ‘summer break’? After the government shuttered schools and businesses for two months, do Europeans really need another break that disrupts social distancing just a month away? A break fundamentally assumes conditions in a few months will be suitable for work and school. Have we learned nothing about expectations?

***

For now, volcanoes of pent-up energy are simmering. To appease restless populations, governments must aspire to strike perhaps a balance that looks like this: enable spaces for humanness, while reconfiguring expectations in a restricted future. As everyday values retreat towards subsistence, basic goals for finding purposeful activities, places to go, food to eat and (limited) numbers of people to see return to prominence. 

Western European countries (Germany in particular) have the luxury to experiment in finding intersections of these simpler goals with environmental sustainability. For futures after this pandemic, it’s worth considering whether Germany is a replicable pandemic model — in terms of public health infrastructure, it’s sort of how Copenhagen is for bicycles.

Even with advantages, cracks in the German reopening armor are showing. The World Medical Association just accused Germany of choosing to endanger the public for economic reasons. Authorities traced a 40-person cluster from May to a church, similar to New York’s first outbreak in March tied to a synagogue. Surely, this jump in cases won’t be the last. Does the German government respond with an iron fist? What happens next? 

Maybe this rule-amorphous rollout doesn’t make sense. Maybe everyone shouldn’t all be near each other outside. Maybe the next would-be lockdown won’t start on time, and more people die. But right now, Germans are asking: does all that really matter?

I’d counter, but in a different direction: tomorrow, everyone will wish they had been better prepared for the real second and third waves. Until then, it’s time to tan.

***

Tim Lazaroff is a freelance journalist and researcher. His areas of interest include political communications and transport governance. A native New Yorker and University of Pennsylvania dual degree graduate, he now studies Urban Management at Technical University Berlin.

Case Study: All cities

There is a generalised idea that once lockdown measures are lifted, everything will “go back to normal.” During the quarantines, we’ve seen change all around us: nature had a very short chance to heal without the influence of humans; communities came together to help each other; international efforts tried to guarantee the safety of the most vulnerable citizens. These events generated a feeling of positivity in many countries where quarantines are being lifted. However, as people started leaving their homes to populate the cities again, they found them very different from what they used to be, as many urban environments have already started to be reshaped to fight and contain the virus.

As life slowly restarts, the idea that everything will go back to how it was seems less and less realistic.

Rather than being changed by the experience of quarantines, it appears that we will be changed by the new world we’ll find outside our homes, as we will be asked to live in cities no longer made to favour socialisation. Even going outside, now that lockdown measures are still in place, means confronting these changes in the urban environment, which can be overwhelming and scary after months of isolation. However, it would have been impossible to expect cities to be left unchanged by such a major paradigm shift of an event.

Like a living organism, cities have grown, expanded and developed according to their historical context. As history unravelled, so they changed, portraying the feelings and ideologies of the time. In the most recent history, we can look back at the two World Wars as prime examples of the relationship between history and urban development, as they affected citizens and intellectuals alike, leading to pivotal changes in all fields, namely urban planning and development.

History and urban planning

After World War I, the modernist movement emerged. The uncontrolled and relentless industrialisation that had taken place before the war had created overcrowded and disorganised cities. In the post-war reality, there was the need to move on from unplanned, irrational cities to rebuild from what was left; modernism pushed forward the idea of the “mechanisation of the city” [i], to bring that order to the urban environment that would allow citizens to identify themselves with their functional cities. The modernist agenda was outlined in the Congrès internationaux d'architecture modern [ii], an organisation started in 1928 with the aim of spreading the ideas of the modern movement. According to the modernist vision, the city would represent the four principal human activities: going around, living, working and recreational time. These main aspects would be spatially separated from each other, to give an appropriate urban representation to each area.

This approach implied the use of new materials, such as steel, glass and reinforced concrete, to allow structures to be functional. The new modernist ideas took the place of the previous neo-classicism style that dominated before the war, which was now deemed inadequate to portray the need of the time to break away from the past and start anew. The concept that “Form follows function” became the motto of the modernist movement, which gave birth to the standardisation of architecture, which has led to the now familiar apartment blocks in most cities’ suburbs. Modernists were strict in their rules: only two units allowed per landing, with a height of three to four stories max, and green spaces built inside the complexes[iii]. The functionalisation of the urban environment was necessary after the war to face the very real problem of rehousing citizens and veterans left homeless. Modernism, by advocating for purified geometry and standardization, perfectly fit with the needs of the time and shaped the appearance of cities after the conflict.

After World War II, the concept of global cities was born. With the end of the war came the realisation that cites are not only places that are most affected by global issues, but, also, stages for political and economic events. Therefore, what happens in the cities has a great repercussion at an international level. This new idea of the global city led to a revolutionised vision of the urban environment, which should now be more inclusive, safe and sustainable. The modernist functional approach suddenly seemed too impersonal and did not manage to truly represent the complicated emotional turmoil of the time, and was therefore abandoned.

Instead, a new approach, known as formalism, was advocated. This new wave was more interested with the decorative qualities of materials and freed architecture from the pragmatic approach that dominated after the first conflict. This meant eliminating the standardised housing solutions found with modernism, and to reduce segregation in cities that were becoming more multicultural due to strong migratory waves from Europe to America. Harmonious urban architecture was the aim of the period and modernism was replaced by the postmodern movement, which strongly criticized the basic ideas of modernism, as they had caused the destruction of urban coherence in favour of function [iv].

For postmodernists, modernist architecture lacked an underlying meaning, essential in the postmodernist vision. The movement looked for a meaning behind architecture, claiming that the humanity of buildings had been lost with the modernist functional approach. With postmodernism, urban planning was rendered urban design; during this time, colourful, eccentric buildings took place of concrete ones, with the aim of reassuring the public instead of disengaging from it. Historical cues were mixed with modernist approaches, in a process known as double coding, first described by Charles Jencks in his book The Language of Post-Modern Architecture: the past was not feared, but rather unified with the modern, to give a new look to cities. Architects now felt free to experiment with the Classical style, which they used in the most different ways.

Postmodernism shaped cities until the early 1990s, when the economic crisis caused by the stock market crash of 1987 created the climate of insecurity similar to the one caused by the end of the first Wold War. Modernism, with its simplicity and clear values, once again became the main movement of cities.

What will our cities look like?

Cities have been the centre of the pandemic: the virus has overwhelmed hospitals, emptied public spaces and forced people inside. We have all by now seen pictures of deserted streets all over the world and as the lockdown measures come to an end, there is a real possibility that our cities will never go back to what they used to be. With the end of quarantines and the prospect of a long-lasting crisis, urban planning is changing and architects are already looking for new ideas to allow our cities and the virus to coexist after the lockdown measures are lifted.

At the moment, there is no specific plan for what cities will become; however, what seems sure is that the new cities will have to promote a more local lifestyle and maintain social distancing. Our parks, public transport, communal spaces will have to adjust to prevent infection rates to increase but still allow people to socialise. Plans include micromarkets to supply small areas, which would allow a maximum of six or seven costumers at a time. And maze-like public parks, to permit social distancing in open spaces. Even houses could change after the lockdown, to allow people to go to work and still share their home with their families without the risk of infection. [v]

These innovations in urban design are guided not only by the need to regulate infection rates, but also represent the ideological and philosophical changes of our time, which all seem to gravitate towards a new, more communal civil society, which prioritizes public heath over individual wellbeing. Social cooperation appears to be the only way to allow lockdowns to end while maintaining a reasonable level of personal freedom; this means that, as citizens, we all need to commit to great levels of sacrifice to guarantee the community’s safety.

However, it is undeniable that mutual cooperation is often difficult, or unachievable, in capitalistic societies that revolve around individual self-interest and personal gratification. Political philosophers are now pushing for a new understanding of the concept of state and citizenship, supporting the Hobbesian philosophy of social cooperation, unity and solidarity [vi]. These ideological shifts will surely have a great impact on our cities, which, for the last century, had been designed to prioritise efficiency and productivity over mutual support.

Ultimately, cities cannot be considered outside of their historical context. Urban planning changes depend both on the needs of the citizens and the leading philosophical currents of the time, as well as the emotional requirements of the population. We can learn from the history of urban planning to expect great changes in the near future, as the flaws in public and private spaces have to be addressed and fixed, to make the urban environment safe again. These necessary changes will lead to an urban revolution, equal in scale to the ones that followed the wars and that will reverberate through urban planning for the foreseeable future. Though nothing is completely clear at the moment, transformations will inevitably take place, and we will need to learn to live in a very different environment that what we were used to.

How our relationship with our cities develop once these changes come into place depends on how willing we are to reinvent ourselves within them.  

***

Maria Chiara Mantova was born and raised in Naples, Italy. She moved to Manchester in 2016 to study, and is currently a forth year medical student at the University of Manchester.

***

[i] https://archiobjects.org/modernism-in-urban-planning-mechanization-or-humanity/

[ii] https://www.citylab.com/design/2020/04/coronavirus-urban-planning-cities-architecture-history/609262/

[iii]https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft7c60084k&chunk.id=d0e511&toc.id=&brand=ucpress

[iv] Jane Jacobs, The death and life of Great American Cities.

[v] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/coronavirus-change-cities-infrastructure/

[vi] https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-it-feels-like-we-are-sliding-into-a-period-of-unrest-but-political-philosophy-offers-hope-137006

Throughout history, major era-defining crises have defined what our cities looked like. The diseases of the Industrial Age led to the rise of modern sanitation systems. The assembly line and post-war prosperity brought car-centric infrastructure to our cities, and undermined age-old colonial systems. The global oil crisis of the 1970s sparked debates of sustainability. And terrorist attacks of more recent years ushered surveillance into public spaces.

Now we’re living through another era-defining crisis: the COVID-19 pandemic. And it, too, will define what our cities will look like in the years ahead. So what exactly will change? In this new Oxford Urbanist series — entitled ‘The Post-COVID-19 Urban Futures’ project — we want to hear from practitioners about the future for urban development after COVID-19.

Generally, the guidelines will follow these key themes:

• Urban tech, big data & digital governance. Who owns cities in the future? Who controls urban data and space? What is life like in the hyper-connected city?

• Mobility. What will our streets look like? What implications does this have for automated vehicles (AVs) or micro-mobility? And for transport writ large?

• Environment & green space. Will cities change the way they perceive green space in the future? What will parks and open space need to have in a post-COVID-19 world? Given the notable environmental effects of slowdown, how does this change the way urban practitioners talk about climate justice?

• Urban lifestyles & city life. Will people seek out less dense environments? Is close-quarter socialization doomed? How will we live differently in cities after COVID-19?

*Note to contributors: Submissions to Oxford Urbanists are unpaid. We encourage contributors to submit pre-existing or ongoing research.

About Oxford Urbanists

Based at the University of Oxford, Oxford Urbanists tackles contemporary urban challenges with innovative solutions developed through interdisciplinary, global collaboration. (See previous Urbanists publications here.) We co-publish and act as a platform for articles on issues relating to urban and infrastructure development issues around the world. These typically take the form of op-eds, research briefs, or analyses ranging from 750-2,500 words. We also publish Q&As of specialist researchers, activists or community organizers/practitioners on relevant topics (1,000 words minimum).

Project contacts

Dexter Docherty (dexdocherty@gmail.com) is the project lead for the Post-COVID-19 Urban Futures project at Oxford Urbanists.

John Surico (jsurico15@gmail.com) is the Regional Focus Editor at Oxford Urbanists.

Case Study: Santiago, Chile

The current quarantine has forced many of us to take shelter in our houses and apartments, making us acutely aware of the importance of the domestic environment in our daily lives. For many, our homes have become our total physical space, only complemented by virtual interactions and few permitted exits in times of pandemic.

This topic was of interest to our team at the Laboratorio de Estudios del Cotidiano (‘Everyday Life Laboratory’), or LEC, long before the pandemic. Based on six semi-structured interviews applied to inhabitants during 2012, we reconstructed a typical day at home of a group of residents in a building located in downtown Santiago (Chile), seeking to represent and understand the interaction between space, time and their daily life, and draw some reflections to have in mind for times of isolation.

Through this exercise, we sought to account for the importance of domestic space (and its architectural design) in the day-to-day life of the city's inhabitants, by paying close attention to a type of space that is usually overlooked by urban and territorial studies: the home. Although there are some classic examples of studies on domestic space in anthropology (Bourdieu & Douglas 1971; Miller, 2001), perhaps it is the architect Robin Evans in two of his essays (1971, 1978) who most clearly highlights the relation between the disposition of the domestic space and the daily life that occurs in those places.

Taking into account the radical changes in urban mobility under the Covid-19 pandemic, we consider it necessary to think about new ways of investigating the domestic space, in order to have inputs that allow us to rethink the design of future homes that are better prepared to face similar situations in the future.

The image shows a day in the life of 6 apartments in a building located in downtown Santiago. In the first (we will review them as a text, from left to right and from top to bottom) corresponds to a tenant living alone in a one-room apartment. According to the transitory nature of her home, she spends much of the day outside working, but uses almost all of her little space available, even transforming her bedroom in a room for multiple activities, thereby taking advantage of her retractable bed. She usually receives few people, normally family members, at the dining table. The bedroom sector is the most used space.

The second floor corresponds to an apartment inhabited by a young couple. They both occupy all the spaces of the apartment, but the woman usually spends more time of her day at home, with a great use of the bedroom and the kitchen, places where they usually share as a couple. On the contrary, when they invite people over, they use the social spaces of their home: the living room and terrace.

The third floor corresponds to a young couple with a 2-year-old daughter. Both adults leave home early for work and receive external help with the care of the girl during daytime. When the babysitter is with their daughter, they usually occupy the living room space to play, taking advantage of its extension. It should be noticed that the secondary bedroom is not used, surely due to its small size; it’s insufficient to host the daughter and an adult that can take care of her. In the afternoon the mother returns home to prepare lunch and to take care of her daughter, an activity that she must combine with work from home. At night she puts the girl in her crib, serves food and the couple goes to bed. This case reflects how the intense daily life of a young family overflows their domestic space and the overload of activities that falls on the mother’s daytime, resulting in a need for outside help and more space to raise a child.

The domestic activities of the couple that inhabits the fourth floor are mainly concentrated in the bedroom (sleeping, reading, studying, watching television), while the more less frequent social activities, which involve the participation of other people, occur in the living room and on the terrace. In this case, the daily use is consistent with the architectural design of the apartment, abiding the separation between more intimate and more public spaces.

The fifth floor corresponds to a couple who share little time in their domestic space, due to their demanding work routines. This is reflected in the lack of furniture in the bedroom and living room. The woman usually makes more use of the kitchen, although she spends most of her day outside the apartment. In the case of the man, as an athlete, he presents a particular routine, getting up at 4 AM to use the gym that is located in the common spaces of the building, using the living room to rest between his exercise routines, and integrating the domestic space into his particular work day.

Finally, the daily life of the couple of the sixth floor is also very consistent with the architectural design of it, in a similar way to the fourth floor. However, this couple makes greater use of their common spaces, integrating them into their domestic routine and spending a lot of time together in the kitchen and living room. In this case, the simplicity of the bedroom is explained by a greater importance of the living room and the kitchen in their routines.

The objective of these analysis are, in part, to show how an in-depth understanding of the quotidian and the systematic observation of these daily practices can lead us to insights that could guide the design of better domestic spaces; apartments and houses that are more effectively designed to accommodate the needs of its inhabitants. In the current context, where Covid-19 has radically changed the daily use of such spaces, the application of this type of analysis could help us advance in the design of domestic spaces that are more suitable for a more intensive use by their residents.

In this sense, we would like to conclude with some questions to think the design of future apartments:

Considering that spending too much time in the bedroom is a bad habit for our health, how is the apartment encouraging or at least allowing the prolonged use of other spaces?

How can we achieve a home space that could satisfy the “subjective” needs of a family, like the need for play of small kids?

How could apartment help to balance the load of domestic tasks between inhabitants?

How radical are the consequences of the change in our routine so far and in the future, because of quarantine? Are modern apartments prepared for this change?

 ***

Joaquín Fermandois is a sociology graduate and researcher at LEC. He conducts educational research in the area of school libraries, reading promotion, art education and school spaces. He currently is undertaking a Master degree in digital learning in Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

Andrés Señoret is a master in Urban Development and researcher at LEC. He currently conducts research related to urban sociability, public space, employment and methods of visual representation of urban and spatial phenomena.

Francisco Ibáñez is a sociology graduate and researcher at LEC . He currently works on projects regarding the impact of social media and technology on social dynamics.

The authors wish to express special acknowledgements to Josefina Buschmann and Daniela Jacob.

***

References

Bourdieu, P., & Douglas, M. (1971). The berber house. Language, communication and education, 28.

Evans, R. (1971). The Rights of Retreat and the Rites of Exclusion: Notes Towards the Definition of Wall. Architectural Design, 41(6), 335-9.

Evans, R. (1978). Figures, doors and passages. Architectural Design, 48, 267-278.

Miller, D. (Ed.). (2001). Home possessions: material culture behind closed doors (pp. 1-231). Oxford: Berg.

Case Study: Lagos, Nigeria

Due to its topography and extensive built up area, Lagos has typically relied on food supplies from other parts of Nigeria and beyond. With a significant urban poor population, livelihoods are often based on a daily wage [1], and it is common for people to purchase food similarly, a situation of large-scale food vulnerability [2].

So how does this play out when the city shuts down to protect itself in a pandemic?

***

Governance gaps and food system disruptions

In order to effect quick containment of the COVID-19 virus, the federal government instituted a total lockdown of Abuja (Nigeria’s capital city), Lagos (the epicentre of the pandemic), and the adjoining Ogun state in March 2020, in addition to inter-city travel restrictions across the country. Vehicles carrying food, fuel and medical supplies medications were, however, exempted [3] [4].

In spite of exemptions, the food distribution chain was disrupted, as many states in the country also effected lockdown measures and border closures [5]. Furthermore, some policemen along the nation’s highways enforced the lockdown orders arbitrarily — permitting trucks of recognised FCMG corporations and charging unlawful toll fees to smaller food vans to enable passage [6]. This resulted in a situation in which farmers' access to farm and market was impeded, and their ability to supply produce severely hindered[7][8]. Consequently, many local markets in Lagos reported scarcity of vegetables, including tomatoes and other staples usually sourced from other parts of the country [9]. The Mile 12 International Market — arguably West Africa’s largest produce market — was a shadow of itself, with the available food items priced significantly higher than pre-COVID times [10]. There are reports of food price increases of up to 50% in other markets [11].

Food system disruptions due to COVID19 are predicted to continue for the foreseeable future, as farmers complain of logistic challenges and infection rates increase across the country [12]. The Food and Agricultural Organisation (UN) predicts that about seven million Nigerians will experience food shortage between June and August 2020 [13]. This is bound to have serious consequences for Lagos, as the city has an agricultural self-sufficiency rate of only 18 per cent [14].

Systemic challenges amplify food insecurity

The FAO recommends that in order to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on agriculture, countries must meet the immediate food needs of their vulnerable populations, boost their social protection programmes, keep food supply chains flowing and gain efficiencies aimed to reduce costs related to trade [15].

A direct response by the Lagos state government has been the distribution of free food supplies to about 200,000 elderly and other vulnerable residents [16]. However, the programme was fraught with irregularities, complaints of low quality and quantity as well as cases of violent hijacking of supplies by local touts in some areas. To douse the consequent tensions, the government expanded the programme to include a community-based feeding of 100,000 youth daily [17]. This intervention was grossly inadequate, as more than half of the estimated 26 million people living in Lagos [18] are aged below 25 years [19], and a significant proportion are unskilled and unemployed [20]. Other residents, especially informal workers who survive on daily earnings, were compelled to contravene the lock down regulations in search of food and livelihoods, saying that ‘Hunger will kill faster than corona.’ [21] It is widely acknowledged that any disruption to the daily livelihoods of informal workers has a huge and significant impact on their ability to meet their most basic needs [22]. It is estimated that about 50-75% of the working population of Lagos are employed in the informal economic sector [23].

A number of innovative schemes were also introduced to keep the food supply chain going. The decentralisation of the Mile 12 Market, through the setting up of an online platform [24] and itinerant mobile markets visiting communities, is one such example. Many retailers and agricultural SMEs also moved online and commenced food delivery services, in addition to produce/beef sharing schemes [25]. This was short-lived though, as activities in some of the emergency markets have been hindered by local touts [26], further highlighting the prevalence of latent violence in the city by predators who attempt to lay claim to whatever resources circulate within the community [27]. Furthermore, many customers complained of exorbitant pricing and lower quality goods sold, perhaps due to aforementioned scarcity in the main markets. The additional cost of logistics also rendered the goods unaffordable for the many middle-income residents who would otherwise have patronised them [28].

It must be said however, that food insecurity in Lagos has been exacerbated by endemic poverty and the added complexities of COVID19. Urban household food insecurity is positively associated with indicators of poverty [29], and more than 60% [30] of Lagos residents live below the poverty line. A study by Roberts, Osadare & Inem (2019) revealed that 45.1% of Lagos households are food insecure, spending more than 40% of household monthly income on food.

Poor households, as well as local touts and homeless people in Lagos, traditionally rely on informal food vendors [31]. However, during the COVID-19 lockdown period, many were not permitted to operate, as their services are not considered to be ‘essential’ [32]. In fact, they are perennially at risk of state sponsored violence as their activities are, rather, considered unlawful [33]. The Lagos state government, in a bid to achieve her ‘model megacity’ status, regularly legislates against informal economic activities, with street traders (of which food vendors form a part) [34] being most precarious.

The Lagos State Ministry of Environment [35] categorizes street trading alongside open defecation, urination in open places and dumping of refuse in drains as examples of environmental abuse and uncivilized dispositions, punishable with goods forfeiture, fines of up to $33 (N5,000) and imprisonment for up to six months for first time offenders. Informal economic activities are prohibited and enforced by several laws. [36]

Food insecurity in Lagos: recognising ‘People as infrastructure’

One approach to addressing the food vulnerability issue occasioned by the coronavirus pandemic in Lagos that has largely gone unnoticed is citizen agency. Since the lockdown began, a number of alternative channels of food support to the vulnerable have sprung up, from households providing an extra plate for indigent neighbours to residents’ associations supporting lower-income adjacent communities [37]. At a larger scale, NGOs and faith-based organisations are providing support in cash and kind to both communities and government [38] [39]. There have also been cases of faith-based organisations supporting their members and immediate communities [40]. Organisations, such as the Lekki Food Bank and Feed the Streets Lagos [41], leverage social media to crowdsource support and/or identify those in need.

To a large extent, these citizen-led groups have been better organised and more effective — a situation described aptly by Abdoumaliq Simone as ‘People as Infrastructure’ [42]. It is a practice of being attuned to faint signals; flashes of important creativity in otherwise desperate manoeuvres; small eruptions in the social fabric that provide new texture; small but important platforms from which to access new views. In other words, a specific economy of perception and collaborative practice is constituted through the capacity of individual actors to circulate across and become familiar with a broad range of spatial, residential, economic and transactional positions.

Popular participation in various municipal processes often co-exists with parallel systems through which significant resources and entitlements are actually allocated [43].  Since the pandemic started in Lagos, both public trust deficit and citizen agency have been amplified [44] as citizens have been able to navigate spaces that government found somewhat impenetrable. Literature tells us that the primary resource that urban Africans have had to draw upon to make their cities has essentially been themselves [45]. In the case of Lagos, my research over the years has documented the adaptive capacities [46] and the immense potential in citizen-led initiatives and community networks [47] in responding to everyday challenges of urban life.

Lagos is food insecure. What can we do about it?

The coronavirus crisis is obviously exacerbating underlying tensions in the city’s urban service structure and spotlighting hitherto silent actors in the city’s food resilience. The pandemic has shown in Lagos that citizen agency cannot be discounted, especially if we are to achieve food security. Food security is defined based on basic elements of food availability, food access food utilization, and stability [48]. Therefore, the following strategies should be adopted to move Lagos closer to its attainment.

Availability: Cases of food spoilage and scarcity can be mitigated if opportunities for food processing and policies to support agricultural businesses are actively pursued. Furthermore, in-city food production should be pursued, using approaches such as vertical farming, given the lack of requisite land for farming. This will help increase the agricultural self-sufficiency index of the state.

Access: As we transit to the ‘new normal,’ which includes living with the virus and extending the physical distancing to everyday life, there is an opportunity to automate the food sector (especially delivery), leveraging opportunities inherent for small businesses to use social medial [49]. Furthermore, the citizen-led organisations should be mobilised to support the most food-insecure members of society. 

Utilisation:  the activities of informal food vendors need to be regulated and protected, especially since they service a major segment of the population, while steps need to be taken to address challenges of homelessness, poor living environment and poverty that tend to exacerbate localised food insecurity

Stability: the food supply value chain ought to recognise the formal-informal continuum. Many agricultural businesses are micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME), while market supplies are mainly from small holder farmers, who often are informal actors. Therefore, supporting the logistic process and ensuring the safety and security of farmers and markets helps to stabilise the supply of food produce in local markets. It behoves governments to mitigate the effects of external risks such as natural disaster, price volatility, conflicts or epidemics through activities and implementations improving food resilience in the city.

Finally, in envisioning a post-COVID normal, there is a major need to further interrogate the existing food distribution networks and localised impact of the coronavirus lockdown; while conclusively addressing the questions: How do we make Lagos food secure? And how do we build resilient food distribution systems in times of uncertainty?

***

Dr Taibat Lawanson is Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Co-Director of the Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. Her research interests are in the broad areas of urban informality, pro-poor development, governance and environmental justice. She is particularly interested in how formal and informal systems synthesize in emerging African urban contexts.   

***

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/31/africa/nigeria-lockdown-daily-wage-earners-intl/index.html

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042812036506

[3] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-nigeria/nigeria-to-extend-coronavirus-lockdowns-for-14-more-days-president-buhari-idUSKCN21V1US

[4] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/nigeria-announces-lockdown-major-cities-curb-coronavirus-200330095100706.htmlx

[5] https://allafrica.com/stories/202003300124.html

[6] https://www.theafricareport.com/27676/coronavirus-food-insecurity-fallout-from-nigerias-lockdown/

[7] https://www.premiumtimesng.com/regional/ssouth-west/385038-coronavirus-petrol-tankers-food-trucks-stranded-as-police-closes-ogun-lagos-boundary.html

[8] https://allafrica.com/stories/202004130515.html

[9] See Note 6

[10] https://punchng.com/feeding-during-lockdown-now-more-expensive-lagos-ogun-fct-residents/

[11] See Note 8

[12] https://guardian.ng/news/shortage-of-food-looms-over-covid-19-lockdown/

[13] https://nairametrics.com/2020/03/20/7-million-nigerians-to-experience-food-shortage/

[14] https://www.von.gov.ng/food-security-lagos-state-establishes-17-farm-settlements/

[15] http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/1269721/icode/

[16] https://tribuneonlineng.com/covid-19-lagos-to-feed-200000-households-for-14-days/

[17] https://www.radionigeria.gov.ng/2020/04/14/lagos-to-operate-daily-food-kitchen/

[18] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-20/lagos-building-luxury-homes-in-face-of-affordable-housing-crisis

[19] https://mepb.lagosstate.gov.ng/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2017/08/Demographic-Dividend-in-Lagos-State-2015-1.pdf

[20] https://www.urbanet.info/youth-employment-in-lagos/

[21] https://www.vanguardngr.com/2020/04/lockdown-hungry-people-more-dangerous-than-covid-19-nigerians-cry-out/

[22] https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/14/nigeria-protect-most-vulnerable-covid-19-response

[23] Lagos State Government. 2013. Lagos State Development Plan 2012-2025. Lagos: Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget.

[24] https://mile12market.org/

[25] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/farmcrowdy-group-announces-partnership-with-best-foods-fresh-farms-300843987.html

[26] https://www.blueprint.ng/covid-19-hoodlums-preventing-distribution-of-food-stuff-around-lagos-market-chairman/?doing_wp_cron=1590388770.8681890964508056640625

[27] Simone. A (2016). City of Potentialities: An Introduction.  Theory, Culture & Society ,2016,  33(7–8) 5–29
DOI: 10.1177/0263276416666915

[28] See Note 9

[29] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6589623/

[30] https://mepb.lagosstate.gov.ng/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2017/01/Poverty-Profile-for-LASG-2014.pdf

[31] https://www.wiego.org/blog/food-security-and-street-vendors-during-covid-19-interview-wiegos-caroline-skinner

[32] https://naijasuperfans.com/photos-police-stormed-obalende-market-in-lagos-destroy-food-items/

[33] https://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2020/01/08/lagos-hits-ikoyi-victoria-island-for-massive-enforcement-demolition/; https://twitter.com/dr_oladeinde/status/1218932381542907904

[34] https://ng.boell.org/en/2018/03/05/transiting-africa%E2%80%99s-model-megacity-where-lagos-everyday-people

[35] Lagos State Ministry of Environment (2011), Transcript of Press Conference with Commissioner of Environment, Mr Tunji Bello, November 27, 2011;  https://punchng.com/lasg-begins-enforcement-of-waste-disposal-street-trading-laws/

[36] Lawanson T (2014) Illegal Urban Entrepreneurship? The Case of Street Vendors in Lagos, Nigeria, (2014) Journal of Architecture and Environment, Institute Tecknologi (ITS) Sepuluh Nopember, Surabaya,  Indonesia.  13(1) 33-48. April 2014

[37] https://twitter.com/MAESTER76/status/1250882000434737152

[38] https://www.vanguardngr.com/2020/04/covid-19-adeboye-oyedepo-donate-medical-supplies-to-lagos-ogun/

[39] https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2020/05/05/covid-19-sanwo-olu-unveils-80-bed-isolation-treatment-centre-at-landmark-village/

[40] https://theeagleonline.com.ng/covid-19-daystar-gives-cash-foodstuff-to-staff-volunteers-community/

[41] https://amp.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/may/02/we-needed-to-do-more-volunteers-step-up-in-lockdown-lagos?twitter_impression=true

[42]  https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-2427.00300

[43] Simone. A, 2010. The Social Infrastructures of City Life in Contemporary Africa Discussion Paper 51, NORDISKA AFRIKAINSTITUTET, UPPSALA 2010

[44] https://www.stearsng.com/article/nigerians-do-not-trust-government

[45] Simone. A.2003.  For the City Yet to Come: Remaking Urban Life in Africa.. Conference lectured at the cycle “Mapping Africa”. Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona, 17 February 2003

[46] https://www.ajol.info/index.php/aref/article/view/106929

[47] https://content.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/download?dac=C2013-0-26478-1&isbn=9781317599104&doi=10.4324/9781315746692-19&format=pdf

[48] Food and Agriculture Organisation. 2008. An Introduction to the Basic Concepts of Food security. www.foodsec.org/docs/concepts_guide.pdf.

[49] Lawanson. T & Udoma-Ejorh.2020. How Smart is Smart City Lagos? In Willis.K and Aurigi. A (eds) The Routledge Companion to Smart Cities. Doi: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315178387

Case Study: All cities

As governments started announcing lockdowns and others measures to flatten the curve, many urbanites started moving to less densely populated areas. The inherent uncertainty of the situation makes it hard to decipher whether this migration is temporary or permanent.

As Le Monde highlights, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered one of the largest human movements in recent history, especially in developing countries. There were different rationales for this move. Some people moved because they came from those rural areas or towns, and either wanted to reunite with their families or could not afford to stay in a city when the vast majority of informal income-generating activities were banned. Others (particularly more affluent ones) moved because spending the crisis at their secondary residences in the countryside seemed like an ideal solution to escape from a seemingly oppressive life under urban lockdown.

Although urban-rural migrations are not new and have been expanding in recent decades in the developed world, the phenomenon is still limited to a certain extent by the imperative of being physically present every day at an office, which held true for the majority of the workforce until a few months ago. As larger and larger sections of society actively look to improve their quality of life by moving to less polluted and less densely populated zones, pressure on some parts of the countryside, as receiving areas, will rise. Until now, the phenomenon is fairly marginal outside of industrialized nations with reliable transport infrastructure, where cities still host the vast majority of quality public services.

So here are the questions we must confront:

Can COVID-19 catalyze the de-urbanization of elites in the developing world? And how will tensions between urbanites and rural dwellers evolve if the trend towards de-urbanization is confirmed?

***

The virus of the rich

Claudia López, Bogotá’s mayor, recently explained the trend of virus spread using a city map, where she draw a red circle around the city’s most affluent neighbors. “This is where the epidemic started,” she explained, “where people who can afford flying abroad live.”

In Mexico, people on social media even dubbed COVID-19 “Lord Virus,” mocking the fact that most of the initial cases where detected among wealthy people who travel abroad often. In fact, one of the first clusters of COVID-19 cases was a group of 400 travelers who chartered flights to Vail, Colorado, one of Mexico’s elite favorite ski areas. These two examples help illustrate why urbanites moving to their secondary residences haven’t been warmly greeted.

Rebuild the city walls

In France, for instance, the influx of wealthy Parisians into many beach towns on the Atlantic Coast, sparsely populated outside of the holiday season, did not please some locals who saw this situation as “an invasion”. Acts of xenophobia, like puncturing the tires of cars with plates from Paris, were reported. The main argument revolves around small towns’ lack of sanitary infrastructure to face a pandemic.

A very similar situation took place in Colombia, where rural dwellers saw incoming urbanites as virus vectors. This created a divide between urbanites, seen as tourists who frame country land as a commodity they use to enjoy a higher quality of life, and country people, who are rooted there and have deeper ties to the land. Mayors of towns and smaller cities insisted in telling their constituents that no one from Bogotá, the capital, will be allowed, as well as instructing people not to host any tourist.

These were pegged as main policies to tackle the spread of the virus. Some have gone so far as blocking the roads leading to large urban centers, the disease’s hotspots.

Rural/urban gap and income inequalities

In Latin America, the urban/rural gap tends to overlap with social inequalities, as still very few wealthy households - at least economically active ones - permanently live in rural areas. The COVID-19 outbreak has been different from the usual pattern of infectious diseases associated with low-income urban and rural areas, where health and sanitation facilities are scarce or unaffordable. In a region where land conflicts are still latent, the permanent presence of elites in rural areas would be a first since the beginning of the 20th century. This will largely depend, of course, on the provision of key public services like health care and 5G connectivity, most likely by private providers, in these areas.

It’s evident that the current pandemic is flipping around previous social dichotomies like these. Discrimination against those who are usually the ones who discriminate (wealthy urbanites) is on the rise. Poor rural migrants in cities often have to fight for their “right to the city,” now wealthy urbanites have to advocate for their “right to the country.”

When this is all over, COVID-19 might ultimately change the territorialisation of social inequalities and social conflicts around the world.

***

Andrés Melendro Blanco currently serves as a sustainability consultant at ALLCOT Group, where he is dedicated to aligning climate change mitigation projects with the UN's 17 SDG. He previously worked as a consultant for UN-Habitat and as an urban development analyst at ProBogotá, a think-tank dedicated to fostering Bogotá’s sustainability. He holds a bachelor’s degree cum laude in Political Science and a master’s degree in Urban Policy, both from Sciences Po Paris.

Case Study: All cities

Once the pandemic has ended, those who can will go back to their offices.

Or will they?

As the COVID-19 crisis has forced desk-bound workers to adopt the “home-office” model, many are wondering if this new reality is the answer to workers’ increasing demands in way of flexibility, rush hour commutes and rising office prices. And if that turns out to be the case, this is a change in our lifestyles that could have immense implications for the enormous amount of space we dedicate in cities to work. So it’s worth thinking about a bit further.

Although we take it for granted, ‘The Office’ has come a long way — and not just because it had a globally popular TV show dedicated to its strange dynamics and antics. The first purpose-built office in the modern sense was the Old Admiralty Office, erected in London in 1726 to administer the amassing international responsibilities of the British Empire. [1] There was a need for a space that was optimal for carrying out desk-bound tasks.

Succeeding the Industrial Revolution, this necessity for seated-work became greater, and many buildings followed suit with a new design — the 5-story “skyscraper” designed in Liverpool by Peter Ellis in 1864. [2] The shift would cause office design to directly reflect a company’s hierarchy, where the boss was at the top and everyone else below him. By the early 1900s, the inspiration behind the interior of these buildings was clearly one inspired by factory floors. Just as a supply chain called for efficiency in spatiality and precision in specialty, these so called Taylorist offices consisted of desks where all workers would sit line by line, making it easy for supervisors to manage productivity. [3]

This artificiality of space influenced the next progression of office space in the 1960s, with the rise of the Bürolandschaft  — the Office Landscape model. This design was built around a more organic setup, which allowed for the manager to work with others and pushed for some privacy by using plants as dividers. This is, also, the time when women started joining the office workforce, although they were originally discouraged from doing so due to the “immodest” open-floor design of these spaces.

The notorious 'Cubicle Farm’ came next, where any kind of privacy was traded for efficiency. Only with the dot-com boom in the late ‘90s, as an ‘Agile and Activity Working’ method became more popular and staff more mobile, the office as we know it slowly shifted to the current model of “hot-desks,” break-out zones, and this growing prominence of natural light and comfortable furniture.[4] The 2008 financial crisis marked the latest turn we’ve seen, cementing co-working spaces by ingeniously turning the surplus of empty buildings in cities into hip, amenity-filled spaces aimed to foster collaboration and variety.

In terms of office design, the welcoming open space is reflected in the push for a homey and comfortable setting. Warm lights, snug lounge chairs, colorful wallpapers, all paired with earthly colors and plants. Interestingly enough (and maybe not coincidentally), as it became more mainstream to work from home, offices started to resemble the home, perhaps in an attempt to attract professionals to certain firms with a feeling of warmth and hospitality — and, also, to increase worker’s productivity by increasing comfort. Nothing wrong with that.

That brings us to today. Offices and co-working spaces are suddenly empty, and most of their former occupants are unsure of when they can return, let alone be comfortable to. Whilst in lockdown, the home and the office have become one unlike ever before — so much so that many employers might think: well, this kind of works. Rent is expensive, workers want flexibility, and some studies suggest an increase in productivity. Why not making home-office the new normal then?

We cannot forget, though, the modern office space was a hybrid, a bit of a gray zone, in our cities. Before the pandemic, they were becoming a place where working and socializing were nearly equal measures, which was one of the originals draws of co-working spaces. They were key social infrastructure — for those, of course, who had access. They were where things happen.

That is because, aside from comfort, people also value a variety of spaces, experiences and… people. So if we shift to a new normal, where home and office become only one word, we may lose out on that crucial part of the human experience. And that may not be something we’re willing to sacrifice so fast.

***

[1] Forsdick, S. 2019. NS Business . [Online]. [21 April 2020]. Available from: https://www.ns-businesshub.com/business/history-of-office-design/

[2] Morgan lovell. 2019. Https://wwwmorganlovellcouk/. [Online]. [21 April 2020]. Available from: https://www.morganlovell.co.uk/the-evolution-of-office-design

[3] Forsdick, S. 2019. NS Business . [Online]. [21 April 2020]. Available from: https://www.ns-businesshub.com/business/history-of-office-design/

[4] Morgan lovell. 2019. Https://wwwmorganlovellcouk/. [Online]. [21 April 2020]. Available from: https://www.morganlovell.co.uk/the-evolution-of-office-design 

***

Shirly Piperno is an MSt candidate in Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford. She is also co-founder of Map Mavn, an urban branding agency.

Does your work involve tackling the COVID-19 crisis through urban measures?

Do you have something to say about the effect of the pandemic on cities worldwide?

Do you have research you’d like to share with a widely-read platform and/or academic circles, including at the University of Oxford and beyond?

If so, consider publishing on Oxford Urbanists as we shift all coverage over to the current pandemic.

Oxford Urbanists, based at the University of Oxford, tackle contemporary urban challenges with innovative solutions through interdisciplinary, global collaboration. (See previous Urbanists publications here.) We co-publish and act as a platform for articles on issues relating to urban and infrastructure development issues around the world. These typically take the form of op-eds, research briefs, or news stories ranging from 750-2,500 words. We also publish interviews of specialist researchers on relevant topics (1,000 words minimum).

Currently, we’re seeking stories related to:

• How COVID-19 is changing urban communities

• How COVID-19 is rethinking urban governance

• How COVID-19 is impacting urban lifestyles

• Ideas on post-COVID-19 urban futures

*Note to contributors: Submissions to Oxford Urbanists are unpaid. We encourage contributors to submit pre-existing or ongoing research.

If you have an idea, please read our general pitch guidelines for more detail on the types of contributions we’re seeking, and then send a short note to us at oxfordurbanists@gmail.com.

OR

If you think your research is best as a short blog, email John Surico, the regional focus editor: jsurico15@gmail.com.

If you think your research is best as a longer magazine story, you can reach out to Ed Steane, the magazine editor, at ed.steane@gmail.com.

Case Study: Freetown, Sierra Leone

Introduction

In just less than a decade, Africa has been overwhelmed with three notable health epidemics – the Ebola outbreaks in West Africa (2014) and later in the Democratic Republic of Congo (2018), and the current COVID-19 pandemic. In each of these outbreaks urban areas have been the epicenter - with over half the world’s population currently living in urban centers, transmission rates are high. Illustrating this, are the current COVID-19 figures that are being reported in Sierra Leone. As of today (30.04.2020) over 65% of cases reported in the country are in Western Urban, which encompasses Freetown.

In Africa, predictions estimate that by 2050, at least one billion of the continent’s population will be urban, with a significant proportion living in informal settlements (Güneralp et al 2017; CSIS 2018). Therefore, the risk of further health outbreaks in urban centres is increasing; it is something cities across the continent are actively grappling with, and will continue to in the coming years.

Informal settlements are a major feature of most cities in sub-Saharan Africa. They are also at the heart of health inequalities in many cities. Learnings from previous epidemics highlight that informal settlements are particularly vulnerable to these epidemics. They are impacted in a number of different ways, which will be elaborated on further in this brief. In Freetown, while the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) affected several areas, the most affected were the sprawling slum-like informal settlements and a number of peri-urban areas. Informal settlements were most affected because of the very nature of their characteristics: many are without access to reliable and essential urban services such as water, health care, sanitation and electricity. Furthermore, a significant share of residents live in poor housing and overcrowded conditions that have weak infrastructure lacking basic services.

Life in informal settlement is a matter of survival, with most households living ‘hand-to-mouth’ and residing in unstable and hazard prone areas of the city that have been deemed unsafe. Unsurprisingly, these challenging conditions — in addition to mistrust in government, conflicting messages about the disease, poor literacy rates and poor mediums of communication — posed significant difficulties in the official response to the EVD. Given these challenges, the 2014 Ebola outbreak did not only highlight the need to focus responses on urban areas, but, also, recognized the need for responses to be tailored and pay special attention to the constraints informal settlements face. The questions, however, remain:

What is the state of health systems in urban Sierra Leone? What specific conditions put urban informal settlements at risk to disease outbreaks? What specific considerations would need to be taken to limit the incidence of disease outbreaks? And how should the response to health epidemics be tailored to informal settlements?

Other questions relate to the prospects for community residents to comply with the health warnings given out by the government and other health sector workers. Through these questions, we at the Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre (SLURC) aim to provide evidence-based insights for the current COVID-19 response. We do this, by drawing on research from two of SLURC’s on-going studies on the EVD, which are being undertaken in partnership with the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at Sussex University (UK) and with York University in Canada. This piece has been adapted for Oxford Urbanists.

***

The EVD outbreak: Sierra Leone’s health care systems and the place of evidence in disaster preparedness planning

The EVD outbreak further crippled the country’s already fragile healthcare system. When Ebola broke out, just like COVID-19, the country did not have the necessary resources to even conduct diagnosis testing. The pace of transmission of the disease left the government scrambling for support, as health workers fought tirelessly to contain the disease. However, the immediate policy action taken by the Sierra Leone government and the World Health Organisation (WHO) was to urge all to take necessary steps to self-protect from the disease. This included the need to practice basic hygiene i.e. regular washing of hands using soap; following good respiratory hygiene; and avoiding the touching of eyes, nose and mouth (WHO 2014). Other measures included social distancing; avoiding crowds/gatherings; lockdown, staying at home; and observing and reporting all EVD-related symptoms to the relevant state authorities using a free phone number designated for this purpose. This same guidance has been introduced by the government of Sierra Leone in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak.

However, what is evident in both cases is that this policy guidance focusing on preventative measures such as good personal hygiene or the more restrictive lockdown does not take into consideration the day-to-day realities and living conditions of informal settlements. The fact is that they are unable to implement these measures, due to their unstable living conditions. Therefore, understanding the living conditions of informal settlements is essential in supporting effective health epidemic responses.

There is a lack of understanding of how informal settlements operate and function, in part because of their inherently complex and fluid nature. Moreover, because of their illegal status, many lack place-based data which makes it difficult to develop evidence-based policy decisions. In Freetown much of the existing data by government is not disaggregated across places or neighbourhoods, and therefore does not provide a detailed understanding of the variances across the city (Macarthy and Koroma, 2016). This hampers prospects to develop preparedness and response plans that are targeted. Besides, even in non-emergency situations, inhabitants of informal settlements are not involved in the design of community health interventions that affect their lives. While community-based groups (for example FEDURP) and a number of other organisations (for example SLURC, CODOHSAPA, COMAHS) have been working to collect settlement-based data to inform health programing, epidemic response planning and decisions on the health challenges in those settlements, it is rarely used/referred to by city authorities (Macarthy et al 2018). This lack of state responses results in informal settlements turning to informal health providers as their first point of contact, especially for illnesses such as headaches, fevers, coughs and malaria. In fact, evidence suggests that traditional medicine is equally as valued as formal healthcare provision. Moreover, because of the limited access to health facilities which in most cases are in poor conditions, some health problems are never diagnosed through formal healthcare systems and remain untreated, directly affecting the residents’ quality of life. This is the case especially among older people who lack sufficient care and do not have consistent support from their close relatives and associates.

However, these informal health systems are usually ignored in epidemic response plans, in part due to a lack of understanding of the issues. Therefore, understanding how healthcare is provided in informal settlements is pertinent, so that an effective response can be developed for informal settlements. A starting point is to understand health-seeking behaviors of residents and how the living conditions further contribute to ill-health. In addition, it is essential to understand the diffused nature of the settlements as it will further uncover barriers to the response, as several challenges are not easily seen or noticed. Currently, a lack of data on urban health in Freetown still exists, as well as a lack of understanding of how health epidemics are exasperated by the complex environmental and social factors of deprivation in informal settlements. Without this, there will be limited success for an effective response within informal settlements.

***

Key lessons on how to contain epidemics that meet the needs of all

In the long run, the increase in health epidemics combined with rapid urbanization is set to exert enormous pressure on city authorities to provide more land for housing, essential urban services and address the complex factors which underpin the vulnerability of informal settlements. The scale of the problem and the limited understanding of how to deal with this challenge is at the heart of the current difficulties faced in implementing prescribed public health measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Key learnings from the Ebola epidemic show that while the urban poor, who predominantly live in informal settlements, were keen to observe the public health measures set by the government, there were significant limitations in being able to practice them. Three of the measures mentioned above — hand washing, social distancing and lockdown — are challenging, if not impossible, to implement in informal settlements.

Often described as low-resource settings, most houses in informal settlements are not connected to running water. According to the Mayor of Freetown, 47% of the city’s population does not have access to running water (Goering, 2020). The main sources of water are wells and streams, which are often unhygienic. In addition, most dwellers do not have the means to pay for a regular supply of water. With limited access to clean water, it is inconceivable for residents to strictly adhere to the practice of hand washing. Furthermore, the widespread loss of income owing to the uncertain business climate that epidemics bring, limited households’ ability to purchase hand sanitizers.

Aside from weakening the national economy, the loss of income due to EVD had serious economic effects on the lives of the poor and vulnerable groups. As the demand for goods slowed down, many businesses were forced to either scale down or to cease operating. Jobs were seriously affected especially among wage workers, the self-employed and informal workers as restrictions on travels were imposed. Even today, a substantial number of these people are still unemployed, reflected in Sierra Leone’s high unemployment rate (DTCIDC, 2017). The loss of income and livelihoods induced by the Ebola epidemic posed an unprecedented challenge to the overall achievement of economic growth in the country, which is now further at risk of being crippled by the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the livelihood of informal workers, who often reside in informal settlements, were strongly affected by the government’s imposition of a variety of trade restrictions. Key among these was the closure of markets, which is the main source of income for many residents, and restrictions on public gatherings, which forced businesses such as bars, restaurants and entertainment centres to close.

There was also the issue of food security. The EVD took a toll on farming activities in rural areas. This together with declining food imports owing to global travel restrictions on Ebola affected countries created significant food shortages in the country. In most informal settlements, rising food prices, shortages in food supplies and the loss of income caused significant everyday challenges for households.

Social distancing, as mentioned above, is one of the key preventative policy measures to combat epidemics, however because informal settlements are densely populated places, with houses and rooms being clustered together, it is difficult to implement this. In some informal settlements, it is common to find single rooms with up to seven occupants (Macarthy et al., 2017). It is also common to find over ten families dwelling in a single house. This makes social distancing almost impossible to implement in the majority of informal settlements, without significantly disrupting the lives of the residents. Particularly during the EVD epidemic, unless the infected person was quickly moved to a holding centre, it was difficult to separate infected persons from eating and sleeping in the same room with other household members. Similarly, it was difficult to assign separate toilet/shower facilities to the sick, since these are often communal. Social distancing can also be problematic to impose in markets where people buy essential goods, as buyers and sellers from different places converge making these spaces very crowded.

The above illustrates the problematic nature of a lockdown for informal settlements — most residents live ‘hand-to-mouth’ and do not have access to credit facilities or insurance nor significant savings — and therefore informal settlement residents are unable to adequately prepare for a lockdown. Often, they also have large families and live in crowded houses, which makes the potential for transmission higher, especially if they are confined to this overcrowded space for an extended period of time. Furthermore, a lockdown can have negative effects on businesses and lead to a loss of income, which has significant implications on the national economy (World Bank, 2015). These challenges were observed in the first 3-day lockdown imposed by the government of Sierra Leone in April, and will undoubtedly be observed in the upcoming 3-day lockdown, starting Sunday, 4th May.

However, what this brief puts into question is not only the feasibility of implementing the lockdown, but the long-term socio-economic consequences. A key question therefore remains: given Freetown’s context, is lockdown really the right approach, or is a partial lockdown, which allows access to basic goods and services, more accommodating of the day-to-day realities of large parts of the urban population?

Despite these challenges, lessons from the EVD response show that a lockdown can create the ideal condition to ensure social distancing and hence reduce transmission, since it does not only prevent people from moving about aimlessly or from visiting friends and relatives, but also, it deters them from converging in cinemas, bars, clubs, markets, football pitches, churches and mosques. A key observation, however, was that in conditions of emergency and insecurity, residents of informal settlements can develop creative means and solutions to safeguard their community from the risks associated with epidemics. One example to reduce transmission was to set up roadblocks at all entry points of the informal settlement (e.g. in Dworzak) and diagnose people with high temperature through infrared thermometers. If diagnosed, people were isolated for treatment. Another example, which has also been adopted during the COVID-19 outbreak, is community sensitization. Driven by individuals in the community, Cockle Bay, an informal settlement located in the western area of Freetown, organized a 3-day community sensitization training in collaboration with Foundations for the Future and Social Work Sierra Leone. This allowed the community members to understand and ask questions related to COVID-19.

In effect, these examples show the importance of local ownership in public health emergencies and also emphasizes the need to include communities in response preparedness to achieve good health results.

***

Conclusion

This piece has attempted to draw learnings from the Ebola epidemic to guide responses to COVID-19 as it continues to take root in informal settlements in Sierra Leone. It has focused specifically on the capital city, Freetown which is one area that was severely affected by the EVD. The relevance of focus on Freetown is because the city has the highest number of suspected COVID-19 cases in Sierra Leone. The piece has argued that as the number of cases grow in Freetown, including in informal settlements, more attention needs to be paid to the constraints informal settlements face in implementing preventative measures. Because of health emergency planners limited understanding of the fluidity of settlements; the spatial variances; and, the complex social and environmental factors that trigger ill health, the preventive measures prescribed by the government do not take into consideration the key challenges faced by the residents.

The Mayor of Freetown is working hard to change this, by engaging with informal communities and understanding their day-to-day constraints. As a result, she is looking at informal settlement upgrading and relocation as potential solution (Goering, 2020). While these indeed might be solutions, they are undoubtedly longer-term plans that require mobilization of resources and coordination efforts. If these policies are implemented in a rushed manner, it can lead to more complex and longer term problems down the road. We therefore encourage more rapid research and evidence to support ongoing efforts to manage and fight COVID-19 in informal settlements that can be implemented in the short to medium term.

***

References

Danish Trade Council for International Development and Cooperation (2017) Labour Market Profile 2017, Sierra Leone

Guneralp, B., Lwasa, S., Masundire, H., Parnell, S, and Seto, K.C., (2017) “Urbanization in Africa: challenges and opportunities for conservation”, Environmental Research Letters, (13) 015002

Macarthy, J.M., Kanneh, L., Turay, J. (2017) Sierra Leone 2015 “Population and Housing Census Thematic Report on Housing Conditions”, Statistics Sierra Leone (SSL) October 2017

Macarthy, J.M., Koroma, B. (2016) “Towards meeting the knowledge and capacity building gaps for equitable urban development in Freetown”, SLURC Publication, ISBN 978-0-9956342-1-3

Saghir, J. and Santoro, J. (2018) “Urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa: Meeting Challenges by Bridging Stakeholders”, A report produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies WHO (2014) “Social Mobilization: Key Messages for Social Mobilization and Community Engagement in Intense Transmission Areas”, WHO/EVD/Guidance/socMob/14.1

World Bank (2015) “The Socio-Economic Impacts of Ebola in Sierra Leone”, A report prepared by the World Bank with assistance from Statistics Sierra Leone Goering, Laura (2020) “Q&A: How the mayor of Freetown, Sierra Leone, is preparing for COVID-19”, Thomson Reuter Foundation. Available at: https://news.trust.org/item/20200417172620-nvit2/ [last accessed 30.04.2020]

***

Dr. Joseph Macarthy is the Executive Director of the Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre (SLURC) in Freetown. He holds a PhD in Urban Planning and Management from Newcastle University (UK). He is an innovative urban planner and a well-established scholar in urban development with backgrounds in urban management, climate change adaptation and disaster risk and resilience, with specific expertise on urban Sierra Leone.

Yasmina Yusuf is the Sub-Saharan Africa Coordinator for Oxford Urbanists. In December 2019, Yasmina joined the SLURC office as a UCL Fellow. She is working a range of activities including conducting research on urban mobility, developing a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) framework for the organisation and overseeing knowledge management & communications activities.  She has an MSc from UCL’s Bartlett Development Planning Unit and a BA from Humboldt University in Berlin. 

Case Study: Catalonia, Spain

Once upon a time, on the 23rd of April, somewhere in the Tarragona municipality of Montblanc, St. Jordi plunged his sword into a fiery dragon, rescuing some high-maintenance damsel in distress who was about to be eaten alive. From the blood of the beast emerged a thorn of beautiful, lush roses. The gallant Jordi — George everywhere else — handed one of these to his betrothed (because getting saved by a knight in shining armour apparently meant consent to marry) before trotting off into the gleaming sunset. He left behind a legend that has, since 1456, become the most revered tale in Catalonia.

The 23rd of April is el Dia de St. Jordi: ‘St. Jordi Day’. It is much more meaningful than Valentine’s Day, and, to some, more important than Easter or Christmas. That is how anticipated this day is. It coincides with the International Day of the Book and the birth (and death) of Shakespeare. It is also the day Spanish author Miguel Cervantes, the mastermind behind the classic Don Quixote, died in 1616. This day of ‘love and culture’ is not a national holiday, but it is treated like one. St. Jordi is, after all, the patron saint of Catalonia.

Stalls selling roses spring up in all corners of the city, filling the streets with sweet scents of spring. Book booths with novels of times gone by line the busiest avenues. Poems are recited by emerging writers in squares. Public buses display small flags of proud yellow and red. Statues of dragons and princes commemorate exhibition spaces under a flawless, blue sky. Bakeries adorn their cakes, croissants and donuts with new colours and sugar crafts. Most people walk around with a rose – or two – in hand. Women were typically gifted a rose by their husbands and partners, while they gave men a book. The times have changed and now women get both. They receive roses from their fathers and their grandparents, their friends and brothers.

La Diada marks the beginning of spring. It is a national festival that forms one of the most important cultural events in the calendar. It dominates newspapers and television headlines every year. It is, as one site puts it, [a] ‘Barcelonian’s most cherished day’. But on this 23rd of April, in these deserted times, St. Jordi is not here. There are no roses to be bought. No new books to line our shelves. No literary exchanges to be had. No dancing and performing in the streets. At least not in person.

The City Council of Barcelona has organised a series of events and initiatives to keep the tradition alive. Residents have been encouraged to decorate their balconies with paper roses. The Barcelona Institute of Culture has set up a platform — ‘Sant Jordi: Llibres en Xarxa’ — to discuss new books and offer literary recommendations. Children have been asked to draw the cover of their favourite books and share them online. St. Jordi has said hello remotely, through a camera lens, but it is, of course, not the same.

This quarantine once more elucidates our need for human contact and outdoors life. Even in our age of mass digital consumption, one realises just how social we are when events like St. Jordi are so severely altered. Nothing can beat the ‘real thing,’ those small moments shared with people that nurture our souls and make life just a little more special. An online picture of a rose cannot replace the feeling of walking down ‘Las Ramblas’ with a rose in hand, arm in arm with a beloved. Scrolling through a book on a screen is not the same as flipping through a physical manuscript just signed by your favourite author. Decorating the home with paper maché dragons and knights cannot supplant the joy and excitement of watching a live parade depicting St. Jordi’s noble actions.

It would seem that Aristotle’s thoughts — “man is by nature a social animal” and “society is something that precedes the individual” — ring true now more than ever. And, of course, there are the economic repercussions, too. Millions of euros have been lost. Flower shops, libraries and bakeries have missed out on the most lucrative day of the year. They will struggle for the months to come, adding to the economic crisis from a pandemic that also forced the cancellation of the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona in February.

St. Jordi may come back this year, on July 23rd. If confirmed — and once cities re-open — Catalonia will celebrate this day in its full glory, the way it deserves. Until then, the roses and books will have to wait.

Like the rest of us.

***

Alexia Faus Onbargi is the Europe and MENA Coordinator at Oxford Urbanists. Originally from Barcelona, she is studying towards an MPhil in Development Studies at the University of Oxford, and is a fellow of the ‘La Caixa’ Foundation (2019-2021). She has been published by the United Nations in Beirut, the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, and the Cambridge-based publication Manara Magazine.

Case Study: All cities

All of us inevitably live in societies that install the idea that time is precious, and should be used to its fullest.

We are expected to occupy it with — first and foremost — our necessary duties: jobs, studies, family. These already take up the majority of our time, but we make sure to fill any gaps we may have during the day with hobbies, social interactions and basically all those other activities that we simply have to do; not necessarily because we enjoy them, but because, again, we are expected to. There is almost an underlying pressure to do a sport, see friends, learn. Always on the go, so that by the end of the day, we can look at ourselves and almost gladly say: we had no time to spare.

***

Time and capitalism

The central role of time and time management in capitalistic societies has long been acknowledged. Thompson offered an accurate description of time discipline in 1967 in “Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism”[i], putting emphasis on the importance of clock time for social control. Just as described in his work then, today we try our hardest to make sure that we are getting the most out of our every moment. We want to make life efficient, so that we can fit more tasks in and be more productive. Technology makes that easier than ever, as it allows tasks to be achieved in a shorter time. This leaves us with more time that, of course, needs to be filled, causing an endless requirement for distractions.

As a matter of fact, we are constantly looking for something to do, and it is not difficult today to find it. The Internet, phones, video games, TV — there are numerous ways for us to entrain ourselves and stay distracted. It is no surprise that so many of us depend on scheduled routines to go through a week, as time management is regarded as the most necessary skill to make the most out of our activities.

***

Distractions in cities

Our own cities are shaped to keep us occupied, designed to satisfy our every need. We can’t ever find an excuse to not do something, because after all it only takes about half an hour to get anywhere and everything is provided almost 24/7: gyms, pubs, bars, cinemas, libraries. The list is endless and this vast number of opportunities just reinforces in us this idea that we should be using our time to the fullest. Because why waste a day at home when you could be doing something (anything) else?

Furthermore, we live in big, busy cities, that produce a massive volume of social interactions. We create, almost unconsciously, superficial and impersonal relationships with others, simply due to the nature of our environment. If, on one hand, we are expected to meet people and have as many connections as possible, on the other, we struggle to find the time for all these relationships. Again, the concept of time is essential to understand how we interact. It is normal to schedule each other in our week, to allocate one or two hours every day to catch up with as many people as possible. Our overcrowded cites never stop and subconsciously push us to do the same.

***

The effects of quarantines

If this is how capitalistic societies work — with people constantly being productive, striving to occupy their time, almost ashamed when they have nothing to do — quarantine measures have suddenly and abruptly broken everyone’s routines. Not only we are forced to stop most social interactions, we are also physically relegated to our houses (at least who can afford to be); working hours are shorter and our only real duty is to stay at home. Our own cities are becoming foreign to us, as going outside mainly raises feelings of anxiety and fear.

"The sole cause of man’s unhappiness,” wrote Blaise Pascal, "is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.” [ii]

This line never been more fitting. We are always busy, always working, always longing for more time “for ourselves;” we are aware of the unsustainable pressure our society puts on us to perform and we want to escape it at all costs. However, when for the first time we have a chance to take a step back and actually focus on us, we realise that we don’t even know if we can. Suddenly stripped away from our duties and hobbies, we are forced to look at ourselves and ask “What do I do now? What do I want to do with my time?”

Our incapability to face these questions shows clearly on the Internet, with blogs and sites offering the most desperate suggestions on how to kill time during quarantine. And it shows on social media consumption, which has considerably increased since the beginning of quarantine measures[iii]. As much as the positive sides of social media (such as keeping tabs on friends and family, as well as psychological support in time of isolation) should not be ignored, we should also, really, ask ourselves…

Why are we in such a desperate need of distractions?

***

A new concept of time

As Pascal said, we are unable to stay by ourselves and that’s because, deep down, we are scared of ourselves. For the first time, we might be forced to experience that nausea that we so unconsciously try to avoid. Although being able to look at the inside world has always been a challenge, we live in an age where distractions are the norm and asking those scary questions that force us to investigate who we really are, and what we really want, may be the key to return to society after this pandemic passes with a wholly new attitude towards time.

Being forced to focus on ourselves and our existence is surely frightening and definitely not easy, but maybe necessary right now. We’ve reached a point where most of us don’t realise that we don’t really spend time focusing on ourselves anymore; those that do put the issue on the side because “there is no time for that.” It should not be a surprise that burnout levels in most professions have never been higher than today[iv]; we should, therefore, ask ourselves if there could be an alternative to this constant anxiety to perform. This could be our opportunity to realise that time doesn’t need to be always used in a productive way, and that we don’t have to occupy our week, hour by hour, without ever stopping.

Maybe, by the end of these quarantines, we can learn that spending time investigating ourselves is not a waste.

***

Maria Chiara Mantova was born and raised in Naples, Italy. She moved to Manchester in 2016 to study, and is currently a forth year medical student at the University of Manchester.

***

[i] E. P. Thompson, Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism, Past and Present, No. 38. (Dec., 1967), pp. 56-97

[ii] Blaise Pascal, Pensees (1670)

[iii] https://www.alistdaily.com/social/coronavirus-social-media-increase/

[iv] Bryan Robinson, The 2019 rise in job stress and burnout, Thrive Global (2019)

Case study: European metropolis (London, Berlin and Milan)

The city is dying,

the city wants to survive;

preventing our minds

from finding their ways,

it imprisons our bodies

in pointless jobs,

disrupts the reciprocity

of the human soul.

The city is dying,

we are now aware of that,

but we need to make an effort

in not dying with it.

The tentacles of the sinking monster

capture every object

happening on their way,

but it can’t find

the only good supply

to full its stomach:

we are opposing the industry,

the cold carbon

and the black oil;

so that the monster

tries to get our integrity:

it decreases the prices,

it increases the range of consumption,

by giving us credit,

by exploiting our work.

We will oppose the false conscience,

we will reclaim the power of our hands,

the autonomy of our brains.

 ***

I am not a poet, even less in English. However, last November, I happened to write the lines above, and during these days of lockdown, I rediscovered the poem I had written. It inspired me to reflect upon themes connected to the article Barbara Russo published on this website earlier in the month.

In her piece, Barbara talks about the relation between private and public space and how individuals behave differently in the two; in her analysis, she correctly points out that not all of us have the same privileges when it comes to housing, as she refers to the a paradoxical — and dramatic — situation of homeless people and prison detainees. However, I think it is important to emphasize that, contrary to what governments constantly say — e.g. “we need to stay home” — the streets of the European metropolis are far from empty.

This is because, during a health crisis, not everyone has the right to stay home. This concerns not only the most essential workers (i.e. doctors, sanitary operators and supermarket assistants), but, also, all those workers who are the real producers of the city, the ones that assure its growth and functioning. They can be divided into two main groups connected to the two big projects of urban development: manufacturing workers, essential for the industrial production of the Fordist city; and drivers, food deliverers, cleaners and care workers, who are all necessary to the privatization and individualization processes of the neoliberal city. For the latter, there is a double movement: on the one hand, the privatization of previously public services has led to the emergence of low-paid carers and sub-contracted cleaners; on the other, by creating new individual needs, it now depends on the work of food deliverers and large-distribution drivers. As the Fordist and neoliberal projects, in many cases, overlap, the two groups of workers conduct different struggles, but share the same geographical space.

Following this poem, this article walks around — metaphorically — the streets of the main European metropolis in order to show how the current health crisis highlights the controversies of the dominant urban model of development, and how workers and citizens are reacting. The empirical basis of this come from my transit in London while I was going to the airport; the experiences that I am having in Berlin, where I live; and the news I am receiving on a daily basis from my hometown of Milan.

***

The city is dying, but the city wants to survive.

Since the beginning of March, numbers of coronavirus cases were increasing exponentially each day in Italy despite its national lockdown, and the situation, as we know, rapidly spun out of control. Lombardy emerged as the hardest-hit region, in particular the neighbouring areas of Milan, Bergamo and Brescia. As the Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte appeared every night on Italian households’ televisions to communicate further restrictive measures, the situation in the Milanese industrial area became dramatic. Specifically, the provinces of Bergamo and Brescia — which are full of factories — were the biggest centres of the virus.

Once all the possible individual restrictive measures were implemented, workers, trade unions and social movements started demanding the government to halt non-essential factories amidst concerns that production processes were not safe for workers’ health. Entire cities were put under lockdown, but underground trains were crowded with people going to work every day, as the industrial employers’ organization (Confindustria) stated that construction and manufacturing could not be stopped. The economy is considered as a living, breathing being that needs to full its stomach: keeping the economy alive is seen as more important than guaranteeing the health of workers, who are therefore asked to put their lives on the line. While the streets of the city were empty, except for the long lines in front of supermarkets, the factories in the periphery of Milan were running. On March 25th, an online protest filled Facebook’s boards with pictures of signs with the hashtags “Io sto con chi sciopera” (I support the strikers).

Indeed, workers started spontaneous strikes whenever or wherever employers did not guarantee masks, gloves and social distancing. While many of us were adapting to the new house life, these workers were denouncing that they were not “meat for slaughter.” Eventually, after a chain reaction spread the strikes throughout northern Italy, the government was forced by unions to pass a decree suspending activities in all non-essential factories. We are opposing the industry has become a shared feeling amongst different layers of the population (whose bodies are imprisoned within house walls) that sympathised with workers (whose bodies are imprisoned in factories). In this sense, reclaiming the power of our hands was not in the sense of the productive value of workers’ hands, but in their capacity to safely interact with their families, locked at home but exposed to the double risk of losing a loved one and, also, being infected by a loved one.

*** 

During the pandemic, it is not only the industrial periphery of European metropolis that is crowded with workers. The streets of London, Berlin and Milan are still populated by a vast variety of workers that are fundamental in immediate welfare provision — doctors, nurses, pharmacists and supermarket cashiers — but, also, of many others that are necessary to the urban lifestyle typical of contemporary cities: drivers, food deliverers, cleaners and care workers. This distinction is not to make one group more important than the other, but to explain certain labour market patterns that are typical of the neoliberal city. While the Fordist model of production and urban development is becoming outdated, so that most of us feel the factory as a cold, distant and criticisable place, the neoliberal metropolitan production is based on our lives as urban citizens, so that it becomes much harder to identify what’s right and what’s wrong. The monster tries to get our integrity is the phenomenon for which, under a lockdown, companies like Amazon or Deliveroo become fundamental infrastructures of the economy, in a similar – although less visible – way to the State.

Without public places, where people can gather, talk and interact, it becomes even harder to recognize the reciprocity of the human soul. The result is that for many workers, this means a further push towards exploiting our work: food delivery, logistic and distribution have seen increases in workload so that bikes and van are now the only means of transport in the streets. Reflecting on the meaning of life while we are locked in our houses — “I really need a better work-life balance,” “I can’t cope with online teaching,” or “Who knows whether we’ll ever return to work in our offices?” — we hardly think about the habits we have developed over the past ten years. It is therefore normal to order food or any other sort of product online, also because service companies have tried their best to decrease prices and increase the range of consumption.

But should this habit be considered normal during a pandemic that requires social distancing and lockdowns as the most immediate measures to prevent the spread of the virus and, thus, the safety of individuals? One could argue that this is important for those people who can’t leave the house. This is correct. That being said, an incredible outpour of initiatives has developed in countless London, Berlin or Milan neighbourhoods to support people in need: in London, community aid groups have sprung up everywhere, with volunteers covering the needs of the most vulnerable; in Milan, “voluntary brigades” not only bring food to old and disabled people, but have also started different crowdfunding initiatives to buy food for people who struggle financially during the pandemic. The same happened in Berlin. All these groups reclaim the power of our hands and the autonomy of our brains to organize and help others in such a hard time. These groups have rapidly become the most reliable platforms for citizens’ support, so that, for example, the Milan city council has even introduced a switchboard to facilitate organization.

 The city is dying, as most of the activities are closed. But many of us need to make an effort in not dying with it.

The privatization of many public services — the externalization of health services, for example — has created the carers, who once were nurses and now operate by going to the houses of old people, traveling every day on public services, thus increasing the risk of contagion for themselves and their patients. Those who try to prevent the risk of contagion in highly trafficked areas are cleaners. In most of the cases, cleaners have continued working, also in closed buildings, to maintain hygiene standards. While carers couldn’t decide to stay home — as they bear a responsibility towards other human beings — deliverers, logistic staff and cleaners could have decided to stop working, but they chose not to do that. This is because the emerging precarious urban workforce — in many cases, immigrants — rarely has access to income and unemployment protection. In London, in particular, unions such as IWGB supported these workers on their daily life struggles before the pandemic, and now have opened up their doors to workers coming from all sectors. In Oxford, a recent petition by different groups demand the university to “protect workers during operational disruptions caused by [the] Covid-19 pandemic.”

These workers are fighting not only for decent sanitary conditions in the workplace, but, also, for welfare protections in case of lay-offs, for if they are left home, then there is nothing they can do to protect themselves and their families.

*** 

“The city is dying, the city wants to survive” — this piece’s namesake — therefore has a double meaning in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic. On the one hand, it refers to corporate economic interests to commodify the needs of people even during this phase, to not let some of their profits go — despite the fact they have been insured by large government subsidies. These groups use channels of influence to persuade governments to waive social distancing measures just for them; or they fight to be included in the essential economic activities, even in cases when they know they can’t assure safe health conditions to their workers. This is nothing new: economic elites have always acted in this way. Indeed, while I was writing the poem, I had in mind the environmental catastrophe that our planet is facing, and how business communities have continued to pursue their strive for profit without any interest for the collective good. The novelty here is that, during a crisis — and even more during this crisis — daily life mediations disappear, and we have the opportunity to see clearly what certain groups prioritize. 

On the other hand, “the city is dying, the city wants to survive” refers to the struggles of workers and the autonomous organizations of citizens to take care of the “common” — health, food, shopping, education, social activities. The crisis is threatening all these caring activities: overwhelmed hospitals that force doctors to let people die; income losses that prevent many people in European cities to stockpile food supplies; social distancing preventing gatherings and educational activities. At the same time, however, a new economy of ‘care’ is emerging in two different ways: first, without any daily life mediation, we’re realizing that the fundamental workers for our societies are not managers or brokers, but workers in the reproductive sectors, like doctors, nurses, carers, and shopping assistants; second, as Barbara Russo noted, locked at home, we find new purposes to our lives, which clearly point in the direction of more care towards the other. The ‘care’ economy is still a gendered and racialised economy, so that the burden of these activities has always – and continue now – fallen mostly on women’s shoulders. Recognising the importance of these activities can therefore spur a broader reflection on how to de-commodify them. It is in this context that the Italian Basic Income Network has launched a campaign for a ‘quarantine basic income’ to guarantee income protection to all the Italian population, but also to move towards a different way of organizing our societies. 

The tension between these two fights for survival is now more than ever happening in the city. In the global post-industrial economy, cities — or, rather, metropolises — hold most of the economic activities, and house close to two-thirds of the global population. If the city dies, a certain approach to the city dies with it. The way in which the life of European metropolis will look like after lockdowns will largely depend upon the distribution of the “common”: it could be seized by economic elites — through socialization of economic losses and austerity programmes — or it could be shared by everyone — through investments in welfare provision and the ecological transformation of our economies. These fights will happen in cities, as they are the core of production of value and pollution, as well as of social interaction and political organization.

In his 1992’s book The City and the Grassroots, Manuel Castells explained how the conflict between different visions for the city is articulated around three main points: 1) over the definition of urban meaning, i.e. the structural performance assigned as a goal to the city; 2) over the adequate performance of urban functions, i.e. the system of organizational means aimed at performing the assigned goal; 3) over the urban form, i.e. the symbolic expression of urban meanings and functions with respect to their historical superimposition. All three urban-defining features are now suspended, replaced by the pervasive meaning of social distancing. However, once lockdown measures will be eased, the struggles of those that are now in the empty streets will be the starting point for the development of alternative cities: “to obtain for the residents a city organized around its use value, as against the notion of urban living and services as a commodity, the logic of exchange value,” Castells wrote. “The ideological themes and historical demands included in this goal are: social wage, quality of life, conservation of history and nature”[1]. The economy of ‘care’ that is developing during this crisis shall transform cities into a spatial support for life.

 ***

Emilio Caja is completing an MPhil in European Politics & Society at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on labour markets and welfare transformations in contemporary Italy and on the new forms of working class representation.

[1] Manuel Castells, The City and the grassroots: a cross-cultural theory of urban social movements, London: Edward Arnold, 1992, p.305.

Unless you’ve been social distancing under a rock, you’ve likely heard that the state of New York has become the epicenter of the coronavirus, with more cases now than any other country. And if so, you may have become vaguely familiar with the state’s governor: Andrew Cuomo.

His daily coronavirus briefings and playful barbs with his TV correspondent-brother, Chris Cuomo, have become a global news cycle staple, often juxtaposed with President Trump’s stream of inconsistencies and media confrontation. The governor’s measured public reassurances have earned him near-universal public praise and trust since the outbreak hit the state’s shores several weeks ago. But I argue the contrary: that the baseline assumptions about Cuomo, and his policies confronting coronavirus — which have largely been seen through the eyes of New York City, its true epicenter, as the governor exerts significant power there — ignore those that may be uncomfortably uncertain, complex, permanent and perhaps even increasingly totalitarian.

Collectively, the American public assumes confidence from a public official equates to good policy: ‘our’ data is relatively accurate, and a total lockdown (albeit one that ends relatively soon) is justified. But what amounts to a ‘good’ coronavirus policy and timeline? Who is Andrew Cuomo, and how has his response evolved? And, ultimately, how well does his response and the underlying values match what New Yorkers need?

At this moment, it’s too early to say Cuomo’s sweeping coronavirus policies (or any leader’s, for that matter) are definitively sensible, though there is room for praise and warning. But everyone’s best estimation is exactly that: no one really knows enough about coronavirus (as both a disease and society-shutter), or the appropriate policies for navigating a pandemic-based paradigm shift. 

And it is most certainly a paradigm shift: current models and expert opinions forecast a wide range of indefinitely disrupted futures. For public health expert Zeke Emanuel, COVID-19 is a “rollercoaster” of peak infections and relative calm, over an optimistic vaccine mass production timeline of 18 months. The idea of a single peak in infections or deaths is dangerous, especially with insufficient testing in the U.S., and he warns of declaring victory too quickly when any curve flattens. 

Emanuel calls for structural, long-term policy reform, which puts economic stamina into question. Rent freezes, for one, aren’t that simple, and don’t address the roots of the problem. Charles Eisenstein, who penned an essay on COVID-19 realities entitled “The Coronation,” would zoom even further out: sweeping policies for a narrow response subtly include an imagined capacity to pick dominoes up after they’ve fallen. If a public health goal is to prevent death, do we sacrifice how we live? In just three weeks, can we assess, with any degree of certainty, whether the benefits of total quarantine will outweigh the costs? 

The scope of policy analysis is key, because the coronavirus policy response goes beyond healthcare: a global shutdown also calls for fiscal and monetary policy levers, which the U.S. federal government mostly controls (and, according to Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer, has pulled successfully). Coronavirus was considered low-risk when it entered the American national discourse in January, and it was up to each elected official’s discretion when and how to take it seriously. (The only politician of note with a plan at that point was then-presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren.) Healthcare and public shutdowns are largely left to the states, despite research, most expert data, and medical stockpiles remaining under federal oversight. And in the Trump era, state governors straddle an odd line: compete with one another and flatter President Trump for federal assistance, while acting independently to stockpile their own.

Clearly, a quarantine response is also a public relations one. Pandemic expert Larry Gostin notes, “the first rule of public health is to gain the public’s trust.” So much about coronavirus has been unclear, including who is infected (the rationale for quarantine, since there is currently no cure), that any sort of evidence-based policy is oxymoronic. Lockdowns are meant to show strength, and yet also expose how vulnerable we are. 

However, public relations is a paradoxical sport; leaders cannot purport to know much, yet must project a certain level of certainty. A dynamic policy accommodating uncertainty is best when following the data leads you astray. It requires a certain humbling of decision-makers: they don’t know how drastic the situation is, or will become, because even public health experts are relying on imperfect models and projections.

Now, that brings us back to Andrew Cuomo. Akin to a Roman dictator, Cuomo projects certainty and thrives in crisis. A proud Democratic establishment politician, technocrat, long-rumored presidential candidate, and son of former governor Mario Cuomo, his decade as governor has seen its share of megaprojects, crises, and controversy. His legacy is complicated; through a partisan oddity, he controlled the State Legislature with Republicans and clashes regularly with Democratic rivals, yet ushered in liberal causes like gay marriage and a $15 minimum wage. In cutting through bureaucracy, he often references expert opinion, but, at the same time, wants experts who defer to him behind the scenes. One cannot laud him for failing to care, but he is not a public health expert by trade.

Everyone I’ve talked to in New York has told me: “You have to admit, he’s been doing a great job.” But buyer beware: Cuomo is incredibly media-savvy. Similar to his tactics I’ve studied in public transportation, he is on the policy front lines by necessity, while also creating media attention during a crisis strategically. It appears Cuomo’s primary public goal for coronavirus is to maintain short-term public order, while privately centralizing his authority. Cuomo’s drastic policy maneuvers — both those in and beyond the public eye — underscore our collective desire for control in a situation that questions the wisdom of its limits. 

Let’s take a look at the facts.

New York’s first confirmed coronavirus infection was in early March (though recent research discovered widespread asymptomatic infections several weeks earlier), at which point Cuomo began holding daily press briefings after sparse comments in February. Here’s a timeline of everything he and Trump said during that month, and clips of his comments in February and March. 

But what’s not in the speeches? A $40 million emergency bill passed on March 3 that prompted concerns from civil advocates and politicians of both parties. In that, Cuomo granted himself powers “far more sweeping” than deemed necessary, especially since the existing emergency powers law grants the governor considerable authority. He can now change government funding midyear, rewriting legislative agreements in real time.

Cuomo’s initial media reaction was misleading, and public health response underwhelming. Both he and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio “projected an unswerving confidence that the outbreak would be readily contained,” according to The New York Times. He publicly assured constituents of contact tracing of New York’s first case that ultimately never came. On March 10, Cuomo then declared a relatively unscientific and porous illusion of a mile-wide containment zone around an outbreak linked to a suburban synagogue, arguably taking attention from combating looming outbreaks in the city. Fortunately, this did catalyze Cuomo’s earliest push for testing with public-private partnerships, a crucial effort that has seen labs across New York more active than in any other state.

At this point, Cuomo’s public tenor changed; one could describe the shift as ‘presidential.’ After he and Mayor de Blasio initially (and notoriously, for the mayor) belittled the virus, Cuomo took public-facing measures as a call to action amidst pleas to a federal government playing catch-up. This is the beginning of Cuomo’s coronavirus response the world knows: his first interview with brother Chris; reminders to prepare for tough times ahead; and, on March 20, the announcement New York was going on ‘PAUSE.’ PAUSE — New York’s stay-at-home order — also issued moratoriums on evictions (not without equity-based criticism), and expanded limits on visits to the seemingly most vulnerable 70+ population. PAUSE’s name is also telling: it suggests an ability to press ‘play.’

Gov. Cuomo waited until March 22 for these stay-at-home orders to go into effect, worried “panic is outpacing the reality.” For comparison: Seattle closed schools on March 11, San Francisco and Ohio on March 12, and California issued stay-at-home orders on March 17. Despite insisting (in Trumpian fashion) that “you won’t find a state that moved faster than New York” in his defense against “media games,” Washington, California and Ohio actually did. Those states chose to ignore the federal government, while Cuomo spent more time pleading for Trump to act. (Although in transportation, Cuomo had already learned he can’t count on Trump; evidently, COVID-19 proved no different.) 

The delay has since come under intense scrutiny, particularly with the revelation that an extra week without quarantine exposed 50 to 80 percent more people than necessary. Admittedly, it is extremely difficult choosing between inciting panic and imposing draconian orders, but if a quarantine was going to happen, waiting made little sense. Mayor de Blasio’s insistence to keep New York City’s public schools open hindered Cuomo’s efforts, a wound the two reopened with last week’s competing announcements on keeping schools closed through September. Years of bickering drove a wedge into statewide coordination.

After having unified control across the state prior to a dramatic spike in hospitalizations, Cuomo has since impressively scaled up his response. His national and international negotiations for ventilators grew New York’s stockpile by several thousand, and his innovative proposal to pool 20 percent of excess ventilator capacity created a single statewide hospital network to flexibly shift resources to more affected areas. Calls to mobilize prospective healthcare workers brought local medical graduates and retired professionals, plus personnel across the country to New York’s front lines. Mandates expanded all hospital bed capacities by a 50 percent minimum, New York’s largest convention center transformed into a massive COVID-19 facility, and Cuomo persuaded Trump to bring a retired 1,000 bed hospital boat into New York Harbor. Last week, he announced a $200 million emergency food relief fund, plus discussions for first responders relief.

The scale mobilizes an impression of policy success: it’s essential to energize my friends suffering unconscionably as ICU nurses, and also keep everyone else resigned to accommodating at home. This is the essence of a public Cuomo crisis response: impress upon the public something so drastic that people must change their behavior for the public good. As with some splashy efforts to overhaul New York’s public transportation, a shiny hospital boat has not proven very helpful, but it is part of getting everyone to care about moving towards an answer. And, in public health, that’s half the battle.

Judging Cuomo based on today’s results is fundamentally flawed: every statistic has a counter-factuality. Hospitalizations have slowed significantly this week, which is terrific news, but there’s an uptick in people dying at home instead of getting medical care for coronavirus, not to mention other illnesses. As mentioned, New York now has more confirmed cases of coronavirus than any country, but thanks to Cuomo, it’s also testing far more people per day than any other state in the country. Cuomo’s been able to gather more ventilators outside his state than any other governor, but the jury is still out on ventilators as hospitals run short on basic supplies. One could argue the governor’s actions have saved lives, but another could suggest he’s been chasing the wrong crises as others silently coalesce.

Overall, Cuomo’s policies have seemingly have been able to curb New York City’s initial spread of coronavirus, but he’s a big part of why it became so disastrous in the first place — blaming density doesn’t work in ex-urban Suffolk County’s emerging hotspots. Compared to California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom and Washington’s Gov. Jay Inslee, Cuomo waited and enacted half-measures. But compared to Georgia’s Gov. Brian Kemp and Oklahoma’s Gov. Kevin Stitt, Cuomo looks like a cutting-edge, straight-talking savant. 

Coronavirus, as an incredibly tragic and inconvenient pause in history, has given us an unprecedented opportunity for reform. It’s been another reminder that collectivist approaches are necessary for society-scorchers, like climate change. And it is also a chance to amplify totalitarian trends and inequality.

On the first of every April, New York’s state budget is due. And this year, Cuomo dominated another coinciding battle behind closed doors. Publicly, it’s borderline insulting to discuss anything other than coronavirus: Cuomo’s nationally-televised rhetoric suggests as much, insisting “there is no politics” in a time like this. Except coronavirus has brought out power and politics like none other, as the world descends further into a state of exception. So somehow it became leverage for an “entire wish list” of unrelated budget items, like undoing criminal justice reform, curbing third parties with campaign finance regulations, and cutting funding to NYC schools and hospitals. It seems that New Yorkers’ near-unanimous public support for his handling of coronavirus has granted Cuomo the leeway to tighten his grip. Wings of both parties consider the budget “full of perversities,” yet even elected officials seemed powerless in the face of “Viktor Orbán on the Hudson.”

In this major (inter)national moment for him, Cuomo has explained things clearly and directly. He has repeatedly told the public not to thank him and — despite calls to challenge Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination — that he is definitely not considering a run for president. At best, he’s playing anonymous donor; at worst, the man he’s potentially looking to replace. 

Yet plenty remains to be seen: how coronavirus continues to spread; whether Cuomo deserves praise (and even runs for president); and if leaders everywhere are doing irreparable damage with indefinite quarantines (concerns are here, here, and here). What and where is the next emerging coronavirus crisis that leaders should already be preparing for? And how should they prepare?

It goes without saying: these times require humbling, and teamwork. They require Cuomo — a “competent egomaniac” who exploits crises for private control and public recognition — to admit fallibility and cooperate with fellow politicians in crafting dynamic, long-term policy. In that way, coronavirus is really asking a lot.

***

Tim Lazaroff is a freelance journalist and researcher. His areas of interest include political communications and transport governance. A native New Yorker and University of Pennsylvania dual degree graduate, he now studies Urban Management at Technical University Berlin.

Case Study: Santiago, Chile

The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken society, overwhelming our ability to deal with more or less controlled levels of risk by unfolding radical uncertainty at all levels. In the case of Chile, this situation came at a particularly pivotal moment for us, as we had found ourselves immersed in a quasi-refoundational process initiated after the social outbreak of the 18th of October (18-O) protests.

 
Despite being in an incipient stage of the outbreak, compared to other countries in Asia and Europe, the coronavirus is exposing previous inequalities within and between Chilean cities. Although my knowledge in epidemiological matters is nil, I am interested in using this space to draw attention to the urban context in which the epidemic has begun to unfold, and to elaborate on enhancing social cohesion as a way to combat this pandemic.

1. COVID-19 reached an unequal Chile during a process of institutional redefinition, and at a time when levels of social cohesion are low.

Chile’s development after the military dictatorship (1973-1990) has been characterized by a rapid and sustained growth, a consequence of the process of neoliberalisation. Despite expanding levels of aggregate welfare for the population, this process has generated and solidified a deep structural social inequality. Moreover, this divide is now in the zeitgeist, if we consider that the public perception of inequality has increased a lot more than the actual inequality (UNDP, 2017).

Although we are still in the process of understanding what really broke out on 18-O, something that was undoubtedly made clear is that inequality had exceeded the limits of our social arrangement and, therefore, we must redefine it in the years ahead. This, of course, occurred at a great cost, given the violence, state repression and human rights violations that occurred during this period. And it also eroded not only social trust in key institutions, such as the government and police, but, also, deepened distances in a society that already felt apart.

 
2. COVID-19 is deployed in a context of high urban segregation. That is a problem.

At the urban level, inequality in Chile is expressed by spatial segregation marked by issues of access to quality public services. Although the coronavirus does not discriminate by class, gender or race in contagion, it does if we consider how different groups are exposed to the virus. In a study carried out by the Centro de Producción del Espacio (2020), it is possible to observe that a higher risk of exposition to the virus is concentrated in the most socially vulnerable sectors, where precarious housing and overcrowding are present. The latter is a critical yet complicating risk factor, since these overcrowding conditions normally include the cohabitation of older adults and people who must go out to work daily, unable to afford to stay inside during quarantine (Araos, 2008).

3. The institutional response to the pandemic, and tension between the central government and the municipalities.

 The central government has had a gradual response to the expansion of the pandemic. First, President Sebastián Piñera declared a state of catastrophe, which granted him special powers at an early stage of the outbreak, like establishing a night curfew, amongst other measures.

Since then, the measures from the central government have been focused on generating sector-based quarantines, accompanied by sanitary cords in some municipalities and cities. Santiago is an emblematic case: at first, the seven high-income municipalities in the city, where most of the infected are, had extended a general quarantine, keeping the rest of the 29 municipalities out, despite pressure from different civil society groups — and particularly from the municipal authorities — to extend quarantine to the entire city. This has generated a series of public disputes between the central government, health authorities, and municipal representatives, even through social media — which, of course, does not help to improve the already-eroded public perception of our authorities. 

Before the outbreak, Chile was preparing to have the first election of regional governors. Sadly, this situation has postponed the election at least until next year. This is connected to the institutional response to the pandemic, since it further reinforces the need to reform our cities by generating metropolitan governments that can act as an intermediate governance body between the central and municipal levels. The current false dichotomy between a central government, oblivious to the problems of the territory, as opposed to municipal authorities with their feet “in the mud,” amidst people’s fears and needs, has been a serious problem for a coordinated and efficient management of this crisis.

Although it is not viable for the current situation, this is an additional incentive to prioritize the creation of a metropolitan authority that is close enough to the territory, and with enough authority to take actions at a less-atomized level than the municipality. And, at the same time, it must have the institutional legitimacy to have an ongoing dialogue with the central government.

4. Towards a community response to the pandemic.

 As I mentioned, we are in a fragile and uncertain period at an institutional level, and this has effects on possible responses to the pandemic at the community level. However, these effects are uncertain, as they can either activate communities as co-responsible agents from a logic of care, or from social control. It is not the same to seek coordination mechanisms through social media, or other ways to supply food or basic supplies to the elderly or other vulnerable populations, and then use these same means to denounce neighbours of supposedly risky behaviors, or to persecute specific groups, such as health workers who are fighting the virus every day on the “front line,” generating draconian confinement rules justified in the alleged “care” of rest of the community.

This pandemic will pass sooner or later, and the communities will remain — we will continue visiting the community shops; living with our neighborhoods; or playing with our children in the squares and parks. Therefore, we must pay attention to the ways that we are caring for each other, and treating ourselves and our neighbours, in order to give an adequate response. We must not fall into delusions of tyranny, which will only help to break down a social fabric that has proven to be so fragile.

 ***

Ignacio Pérez is a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford. ignacio.perez@ouce.ox.ac.uk / @JIPerezK 

Cited works

Araos, C. (2008). La tensión entre filiación y conyugalidad en la génesis empírica del allegamiento: estudio cualitativo comparado entre familias pobres de Santiago de Chile.

Centro de Producción del Espacio (2020). Vulnerabilidad de los hogares chilenos de cara a la expansión del #COVID-19. Accesed at : https://producciondelespacio.org/2020/03/31/vulnerabilidad-de-los-hogares-chilenos-de-cara-a-la-expansion-del-covid-19/

PNUD (2017). Desiguales: Orígenes, cambios y desafíos de la brecha social en Chile. Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD).

Case Study: Barcelona, Spain

Following three weeks of quarantine, the Spanish government announced on April 4 that lockdown will be extended until April 26.  Spain is now second in the world for most infections due to COVID-19, after the United States, and also, for most deaths, after Italy. The country is going through, as President Pedro Sánchez noted on March 21, “the most serious situation since the Spanish Civil War.”

Amidst the confusion, the fear and the sheer sadness of what is happening here, I have been struggling to understand why we — the Spanish — have been hit so hard. I thought we had a wonderful public healthcare system after we ranked third in the world, and first in Europe, according to the 2018 Bloomberg Healthcare Efficiency Index.  Wasn’t Spain reportedly the healthiest country in the world just last year?

Spanish and international media outlets have had much to say. The Guardian and the Financial Times published some particularly reaming articles that point to glaring instances of government mismanagement — and even ineptitude. For instance, the day Italy went into full lockdown, the International Women’s Day march was allowed to proceed in the capital city of Madrid, now the viral epicenter of the country. Citizens were rightfully angry when it became clear that the government had bought millions of euros worth of faulty testing kits from an unregistered Chinese supplier.

These examples, unfortunately, compound stereotypes of southern European inefficiency, but they are also only one part of the story. Urban lifestyles, I believe, have had a much greater stake in how things have panned out, perhaps more than any government policy or response to COVID-19.

For one, most of us live in small, cramped apartments in buildings between six and eight stories tall. In many northern European countries, in contrast, people tend to live in detached or semi-detached houses. According to a 2016 study by Spanish consultancy firm Afi, apartments in Barcelona overwhelmingly fall between the 73 and 115 meters squared bracket. This means that many families of three, four, five and above are living in close contact with each other, and constantly interacting with their neighbours. In a country of 46.7 million people — of which 80.3% is urban — that’s a lot of people literally living on top of each other.

People here also tend to be very close to their families, and bonds with elders are strong. Solidarity through family networks has, in fact, often been cited as a key reason why there was no social revolution in Spain when we were hit by the 2008 financial crisis. It is perhaps another reason why infections here have been so high — especially in homes for the aging, and residencies for persons with disabilities — and deaths so pronounced amongst the 70+ age group. Furthermore, we do not have a tradition of taking off our shoes before entering the home, unlike in many Far East, northern European, and eastern European countries. This further aggravates exposure to bacteria and viruses that may linger in streets and community spaces. It does not, of course, make or break a pandemic outbreak — but it certainly does not help.

Due to these cramped living conditions, home is mostly just a place to sleep. Life is outside, and Barcelona has long fostered an environment to pursue ‘la vida de carrer,’ or street-based lifestyle. We have good weather (apparently the virus does well in temperate climates); great food; access to both beaches and mountains (the city is sandwiched between both); as well as a range of well-kept parks, historic buildings and cultural events.

Even in the winter months, agreeable temperatures enable people to enjoy the outdoor terraçes (seating areas) for a coffee, a Sunday lunch at 3pm, or a beer, all while soaking in the beating sun. We sit in close proximity to each other in the quaint plaçes (squares) that dot the city, in which children can play together in the parks. We enjoy tapas that we share amongst ourselves, with our hands, and greet our friends and family with a kiss on each cheek. This outdoor activity generates a warm, friendly atmosphere and invites plenty of socialising, which is, of course, problematic when a pandemic hits. Barring differences in geography and landscape, these characteristics are true of most other cities in Spain. They may be why Barcelona is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe, and why Spain is the second most visited country in the world after France, having welcomed 83 million tourists in 2018.

But they are also, perhaps, some of the main reasons why the country is in the situation it is in today. Outdoor, urban life is so important and inherently embedded in our lifestyles that we initially paid lip service to the early warnings coming first from China — and, then, more prominently from Italy. Suggestions to limit contact with people sounded foreign in a country where dedication to family and friends forms the backbone of social life. Confinement in small apartments simply did not make sense until we realised things were getting serious. Perhaps this is why the government was so late to react, too. The national quarantine has not only brought a standstill to the economy, but, also, has imprinted itself on the urban psyche; on the familiarity and affection that people have towards each other; on what living well — “the Mediterranean way” — means.

It will be interesting to see how this pandemic shapes our understandings of urban life going forward. However, I struggle to see how lifestyles will actually shift in response. We are not going to suddenly start building and living in detached or semi-detached houses. I doubt we will stop our culture of going out, though we may go to a café with a friend once, instead of twice a week. We may kiss people less on the cheeks, but we will still kiss. No matter what the authorities do to respond to outbreaks like these, there are certain attributes of Spanish urban life that will continue to make the country so vulnerable. Many of these characteristics are found in other places, too, and are perhaps why Italy has suffered so much as well. Yet because the distribution of urban space and our culture of outdoors socialising are unlikely to change, it is dutifully imperative that the government strengthens the public healthcare system to prevent similar pandemic outcomes in the future.

Of course, this would only be a reactive measure to mitigate the central role that urban life has in spreading diseases. But right now, it is better than nothing.

***

Alexia Faus Onbargi is the Europe and MENA Coordinator at Oxford Urbanists. Originally from Barcelona, she is studying towards an MPhil in Development Studies at the University of Oxford, and is a fellow of the ‘La Caixa’ Foundation (2019-2021). She has been published by the United Nations in Beirut, the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, and the Cambridge-based publication Manara Magazine.

Case Study: Milan, Italy

The photo above was taken by Ettore Sottsass in 1993, in Hong Kong. The caption accompanying it is this:

"There are certain obsessions of modernity that I don't think are ‘tout court’ positive for the future. They are, among others:

a) Speed. Everything, absolutely everything, must happen ‘faster,’ or rather immediately. Immediately must happen the birth, the consumption and death of any event, of anything produced.

b) The Lightness. Man must eliminate the force of gravity, the weight. Everything must be light, very light and if it is not light, it must seem light. Everything must fly a little. A very famous engineer said: ‘it's nice to build higher and higher.’

c) Violence. Heroism, mortal risk, cunning, theft and murder are signs of strength, masculinity and victory.

The skyscrapers on the horizon contain speed, lightness, violence, cunning, theft and - why not? - perhaps even murder.

Who lives there?"

***

If we think of our cities before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, I think we could all agree that speed, lightness and violence were the hallmarks of our lives. Today, however, quarantine calls us back to calm: new rhythms, incredibly relaxed, are now imposed on the majority of the world’s population. Safe in our homes — at least those who can afford to be — we no longer feel so light, but we are dealing, each in a different way, with a new way of conceiving the passing of time; our projects, our relationship with ourselves and a few others. In this revised scenario, there are many individual reactions, but everyone seems to want to remain anchored to some kind of practice, to a 'doing' so as not to succumb to boredom.

We know, however, that in Italy, quarantine prevents us almost completely from leaving the home, so we must identify the space of doing within these confines.

The photo by the architect Ettore Sottsass shows a certain form of living: living in a house without balconies, with small windows, holed up in the darkness of a house in a large metropolis, on the tenth floor of a skyscraper. This could be considered a common and normal living condition. But, today, even more than yesterday, with the advent of this public health catastrophe, some houses seem better than others.

***

In the weeks following the decree that forced Italians indoors, I have noticed that in magazines and blogs attentive to social issues, there have been articles on the emergency that the coronavirus explosion has had in relation to prison inmates and the homeless. What the headlines in these articles attempt to say is that quarantine is an excellent measure to save the majority of the population, but that it is impossible to apply to those who do not have a home, or are forced to live in Italian prisons, which are known, above all, for being overcrowding. These distinct characteristics clearly clash with — and contradict — the basic rules of mutual distancing adopted to avoid the expansion of contagion.

On March 11, a Carabinieri patrol reported a homeless man who was in Via Crescenzago, Milan, on the grounds that he was in violation of the government decree [1]. The same article states that the reception and support centre, where the homeless person normally went, was closed due to the emergency. We know that there are similar stories out there. Many other people without a home were called back because they were sleeping in the area adjacent to Milano Centrale, the main train hub.

The housing emergency in Milan is old news. We know that the rate of inhabitants of the city of Milan has been growing steadily for ten years, so much so that, in 2019, we reached over 1.4 million residents[2]. This has caused the demand for apartments to grow exponentially, recreating the same vicious circle that many other European capitals know, made up of gentrification, concreting, and rent increases. Parallel to these phenomena, the municipal and regional administrations, especially the latter, have not responded in any way, except with the eviction of numerous occupied houses — despite the fact that most of the ALER-owned buildings (the Milanese company that deals with public residences) are uninhabitable, and the waiting list for a council house is endless, with dubious access criteria.

In Milan as much as anywhere else, the COVID-19 pandemic fits in a context that was already in emergency; one which, in this case, was characterized by housing exclusion.

***

These brief references draw attention to a huge issue in Italy: the right to housing.

This is an issue that might seem marginal, but in times of quarantine, it reveals itself in all of its drama. In trying to analyze the exceptionality of this issue in the new context created by the coronavirus explosion, I came across a recent article published in Jacobin Italia entitled Living without public spaces, written by Carlotta Caciagli. She dissects the similarities that can be found between the pre-COVID-19 urban plant and during it; in both cases, in fact, the places crossed by citizens are mostly private ones, where the subject must identify as a producer or a consumer. This discourse appears valid, both in terms of our habits in times of peace — just think of the aperitif at the bar; shopping at the mall on the weekend; or evenings at the discotheque — and, even more, for our condition in this 'time of war.’

All of those who have the opportunity must stay at home, living the private space par excellence. Of the others who cannot, we do not speak of, as it does not seem relevant to refer to those who cannot access private property, or risk losing it due to the suspension of production activities, and, in many cases, wages.

This crisis that exploded so suddenly, conditioning our lives in ways that none of us were ever used to, is letting the infinite contradictions of the dominant economic and political system emerge, making the social inequalities that this system generates reverberate ever so visibly.

I believe that that we can use important magnifying glass of a moment to notice two things:

1) In the governmental decrees issued in recent weeks, the subject of reference is based on the assumption is that we are all: equal; well-off; have a (welcoming) home to stay in; have the means available for smart-working, or distance learning; are part of balanced families within which it is automatic to live a peaceful environment; and have no addictions of any kind, or psychological and physical disorders. 

The law regulates interpersonal relationships in the name of public health, without considering the existence of pre-existing problems. In this way, the state, through its laws, addresses itself to a single subject; creates and normalizes it; and consequently rejects everything that was on the margins before, and that now cannot even be said to be on the margins, but tends to non-exist.

Can we think of solutions for the most fragile and the most afflicted by forced imprisonment? Various voices are rising in this sense: there are those who are asking for a quarantine income; those who are asking for prisoners’ release; those who are activating assistance numbers for female victims of violence; and those who, in this regard, are asking that a reported man be removed from the home where the victim lives. Can we demand that migrants and homeless populations be directed to new structures, designed specifically for this emergency? Can we suspend the payment of rents in cases where wages were suspended?

In short, there is a lot to think about and expect, since the decrees issued by the government do not consider borderline situations. Even if we do not want to think about the biggest emergencies, other seemingly unproblematic questions remain open. For example, are we sure that public education can ensure the right to study for all in the absence of in-presence teaching? Obviously not, if we think about the people who are dyslexic or have other learning disabilities, who need tutors in order to carry out the curricular work. Or that not all children have access to a Wi-Fi network. Or that not everyone even has a computer. In general, many do not have their own space in the house where they can carry out the remote distance activities that are increasingly expected of them. In short, when the space outside is completely lacking, we need to look at the space inside in order to try to take responsibility of the contradictions that our economic and social systems generate.

2) Without being able to cross that little public space to which our cities still offer access, the very possibility of encounter is constitutively lacking. By the term 'encounter,' I mean the most proper meaning of the term: the encounter is with the Other, the one who is different from me, and, therefore, is more often a Clash, above all else. Perhaps being forced to domestic imprisonment should send our thoughts back to that great space of action, that should be taken care of and attended as much as possible. It is only in the public space, in fact, that these different subjectivities can interact on a level of fair comparison, ignoring the origins and integrating the differences.

The examples of this inclusiveness that immediately come to my mind are the squares: in most Italian cities, squares — especially in the historical centres — are still essential points of encounter and sociality. They are those spaces that are taken for granted, but they are the lifeblood of a way of conceiving openness to the other that is being lost in other places. In Milan, for example, I have often noticed the absence of those places that are completely open to the public, and crossed by a heterogeneity of people so present in other Italian cities. In fact, in Milan as in many European cities, sociality — to go in search of the event, or simply to crystallize in such a way that each group finds its own point of reference and living space — tends to be privatized. It is increasingly difficult (and, in the end, undesirable) to meet the Other, the one who comes from another school, another city or, more likely, another socioeconomic background. In this scenario, an autonomous use of public space is also constantly criminalized and regulated by devices of various kinds. Just think of the restrictions and regulations introduced in many European cities to protect 'public decorum.’

***

Urban space is a bearer, like so many other areas of society at the moment, of meaning; a meaning that, when a city is uninhabitable, tells us something much more than when we used to inhabit it before. This reveals the interrelation between paying attention to the private environment of the house, and rethinking the public environment of the city.

In her article, Caciagli writes that "the domestic environment makes us individuals, but it is the public environment that makes us subjects. Without a collective space we are only contained and containable bodies.” Perhaps this is what we need to be aware of: that the struggles for the home — because we all have the right in practice to a dignified home — cannot be separated from an even more collective struggle. We need to claim the free and spontaneous use of public spaces. Giving value back to the public today seems, perhaps more than ever, an obvious urgency.

This is what the deserted city reveals to us, uninhabited in its streets and squares, where no open space belongs to us anymore: to satisfy always and only the private means to confine everyone to their own positions and origins; to give oxygen to the public, to the open space, the means in which we learn to meet others. Public space is, above all, the communicative and discursive space where language is affirmed and built; it is the place where, to put it in Wittgenstein’s words, one learns and repeats the gestures of a socially shared and solidified practice. That is, one learns to be together.

Let us try to remember how important this is when this is all over. Otherwise, there is a risk that the inequalities so evident in our homes will never be dampened and questioned in the outer space.  

***

Barbara Russo was born and raised in Naples. She graduated in philosophy at the University of Milan with a thesis on the concept of space from Michel Foucault. Her research interests are at the intersection between the question of the individual in the space and its declination in the modern metropolis. 

***

[1] The decree-laws issued by the government to prevent the spread of contagion can be found here: http://www.governo.it/it/approfondimento/coronavirus-la-normativa/14252.

[2] ISTAT data.

A Sanitary Tale of Two Cities: Kolkata & Delhi, India

“I come from a poor family. I have seen poverty. The poor need respect and it begins with cleanliness,“ - Prime Minister Narender Modi, in his first Independence Day speech, August 15, 2014

On the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi — who believed cleanliness was next to godliness — Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan, or ‘Clean Indian Mission,’ in August of 2014. Aimed at eradicating open defecation across India by October 2019, the Mission identified the rather unsanitary phenomenon as a national priority.

The pan-India Mission runs separately for urban and rural India as Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan (Urban), and Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan (Gramin/Rural). The components, implementation mechanism, funding and private party participation differ across the Urban and Rural Abhiyaan, as the reasons for — and challenges posed by — open defecation vary.

The urban Mission, for instance, aims to ensure elimination of open defecation; eradication of manual scavenging; modern and scientific municipal solid waste management; behavioural change regarding healthy sanitation practices; awareness about sanitation and its linkage with public health; capacity augmentation for urban local bodies to create an enabling environment for private sector; and participation in CapEx and OpEx.

Allocated with 62,009 crore INR (~8.4 billion USD), the urban module is actionable across 4,372 Statutory towns of India, and has six key components: household toilets, including conversion of insanitary latrines into pour-flush latrines; community toilets, primarily in low-income and/or informal settlements/slums, where space and/or land are constraints in providing a household toilet, which are for fixed user groups; public toilets and urinals, provided for the floating population or general public in places such as markets, train stations, tourist places, near office complexes, or other public areas where there are considerable numbers of people passing by; solid waste management; Information Education Communication (IEC) and public awareness; and finally, capacity building and Administrative & Office Expenses (A&OE).

***

But what does ‘progress’ mean in the COVID-19 pandemic?

Open defecation has become a bigger challenge in a world rattled by the virus. Reports from different parts of the world — not just India, or other Global South countries — are indicating higher impacts of COVID19 on city spaces and citizens who lack access to water to cook or bathe, let alone wash their hands regularly, and/or who do not have proper sanitation facilities. This population at higher risk of COVID19 is often found in urban informal settlements, where overcrowding makes it near impossible (and a privilege) to follow the World Health Organisation’s recommendation of social distancing and self-isolation.

In select spaces, the United Nations and its different arms and partners, governments, civil societies and citizens are taking actions to break the COVID19 chain and maintain cleanliness in these urban informal settlements. For example, in Kenya’s Mathare informal settlement, Kenya, the UN-Habitat and Mathare Environmental One Stop Youth Centre have partnered to protect the community by setting up hand washing stations at one stop resource centre. In the Moria camp — situated on the Greek island of Lesbos — residents have taken matters in their own hands, sewing face masks for the refugee camp and spreading the word on the importance of hygiene. On another Greek island of Samos, the Vathy refugee camp is fighting the virus with the support of two NGOs: Still I Rise NGO, which is enabling children to lead awareness campaigns; and Movement on the Ground, which is taping dispensers of hand sanitiser to olive trees.

In India, however, no such practice or action specifically dedicated towards urban informal settlements has emerged yet. COVID19 has started knocking the doors of bastis or slums in Mumbai. It’s all but certain the virus has entered other bastis around urban India, but little data exists as the testing has been very limited. In the following sections, we’ll take a look at how the initiative has unfolded, to hopefully glean insight into pro-sanitary reforms’ role in the COVID-19 era.

***

In the 5 years since the launch, the urban module of the mission has brought about a string of changes in India’s sanitary state. Back then, it would have been considered unthinkable for an Indian person to talk openly about matters of defecation, let alone have the Prime Minister say on national airs that open defecation was now one of the country’s top priorities. You would’ve been hard-pressed to see Bollywood celebrities wielding brooms or campaigning for a cleaner India with hygiene products on social media. Government employees were not cleaning their work places at least once a year, and romantic movies abut a toilet (no, seriously: Toilet: A Love Story) probably were not earning 180+ million INR on the box office.

If a woman in select parts of rural India rejected marriage because the husband’s home lacked a toilet facility, that would’ve been blasphemous. Now, it’s common. Advertising campaigns usually only promoted the product, but now also convey a message of behavioural change. Art works in public spaces, too.

In the past five years, a lot has changed in the sanitary state of India, a country where sanitation — and everything and everyone linked to sanitation — is associated as dirty [2]. A whopping 90 million new toilets have been built across the country.  Of course, several problems persist. Several of these broom-wielding actions are just public stunts. Millions of these ‘new’ toilets lie unused. Thousands of ‘old’ toilets, built prior to the Clean India Mission by local governments and city or state governments, lie defunct or in need of repair.

But it is still worth noting the success of it all. Post-1947, India launched a series of policies and action programmes aimed at sanitation, running separately for urban and rural India. Yet none of these policies focused on eradication of open defecation. None of the myriad of policies even acknowledged open defecation as a challenge to India. Until 2008, urban sanitation was a small component of water schemes, or housing policies, or poverty alleviation programmes, or basic minimum services schemes.

Interestingly, India’s ‘modern’ sanitation systems find their pipelines from the Raj. After the 1857 mutiny, key urban centres of British India — Delhi; Calcutta (now known as Kolkata); Bombay (now known as Mumbai); and Madras (now known as Chennai) — were drowning in unsanitary living conditions. To improve the sanitary state of British India, a sanitary revolution was launched by the British colonial government. This revolution focused on four key action areas: controlling the use of land; spatial and social segregation of European and indigenous populations and unequal provision of infrastructure in the two areas; empowering local level bodies to collect taxes, which could be used for improving the public health of urban areas; and the establishment of improvement trusts to demolish informal settlements and relocate them to the periphery and build housing estates and/or arterial roads on the cleared land.

With this sanitary revolution, inspired by actions led in Britain post-Industrial Revolution, town planning established its roots in British India. Inequalities and social divide based on sanitation aggravated in India. Ironically, the country also boasts having one of the earliest sanitation systems intertwined with town planning, as excavated from the Indus valley civilization in 2600 BC. It is also evident from a critical assessment of colonial and post-Independence sanitary actions that certain colonial practices and policies of social and spatial segregation, which have persisted in Independent India, and a crisis management approach are critical in perpetuating open defecation.

But why is the human right to adequate sanitation still then a luxury for millions across the country? And does this present a major vulnerability during the COVID-19 outbreak?

Let us try to answer that with a sanitary tale of two cities:

Kolkata

Once upon a time, Kolkata was the capital of British India. Now, it is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, and well known for its diverse sweets/desserts, tea, fish and intellect. Whilst undeterred by 4+ million urban population living in the shadows of the city, thousands of residents defecate in the open everyday.

The Dhakuria bridge basti is one such shadow of the city, where huts and homes hug the rails; access to household toilets or community toilets remains a dream; and promise of quick death or an awful maiming looms. Living as ‘illegal’ squatters on central government land[3]’, 10,000+ inhabitants of the basti have become accustomed to using active railway tracks as toilets, unhindered by the dangers of using the railway tracks as an open space to play, bathe or defecate.

Interestingly, the basti has a natural order of (in)sanitary functioning. Along the railway tracks, women have a well-defined area — often hidden from the public eye — to address nature’s call. Men aren’t allowed to step anywhere near this open toilet, yet they have no well-defined space. Any space that is open is used for doing the business. A walk through this basti makes us wonder why people have grown accustomed to this plight.

The answer lies entrapped in the vicious cycle of poverty. Everyone wants to live a life of means, but it isn’t easy. Dhakuria bridge basti is no exception. Living in the underbelly of Kolkata, inhabitants of the basti dream of a better life, where inhabitants do not have to live in shanties, where going to the bathroom is confined to four walls of a toilet block, and where each day is not a survival of the fittest.

Between 2017 and 2018, shanties of the basti were given official addresses, enabling the residents to receive posts and register for unique identification per the state and national government rules. This official recognition also rekindled the hope of a reality where residents do not have to worry about evictions, and the dream of toilets away from the active railway tracks may transform into reality.  

But still, that future remains uncertain.

***

Delhi

The capital of India has seen the rise and fall of seven cities. Becoming the capital of British India in 1911, Delhi was unveiled in 1931 as the seat of British India power that moved from Calcutta. Just like modern-day Kolkata, Delhi continues to expand its spatial extent and population, as well as the subsequent pollution and other inequities.

Home to 18+ million residents, the National Capital Territory of Delhi has ~2 million inhabitants living in the crevices of the city, of whom nearly 40 percent continue to defecate in the open.

Basti along Delhi’s Prem Bari bridge is one such scenario, bound by active railway tracks on one end and an industrial area on the other. This linear settlement of ~4,000 shanties contributed to the development of Delhi amid the 1982 Asian Games, witnessed countless eviction notices in the 1990s slum clearance drive, and bore the birth and loss of limbs and lives on tracks, amongst other things.

Identified as a JJ cluster[4] by the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board in 2015, the basti of ~20,000 inhabitants is provided with a community toilet complex equipped with 17 facilities for women and 23 for men, separated by temporary walls. Despite the dilapidated infrastructure and inadequate number of toilets, inhabitants have accustomed themselves to using it. Interestingly, inhabitants have developed a time coordinated system to use the facility at peak morning times. As soon as the sun sets, the facility becomes an avoidable zone, as women, children and elderly avoid the facility in fear of sexual and physical harassment. Yet that doesn’t deter men who need to go at night.

‘User by day, open defecator by night’ is the way of (un)sanitary living adopted by basti. For a settlement that extends nearly half a kilometre in length, the provision of one toilet complex is not going to put an end to open defecation. Why?

Well, ask yourselves: would you travel more than 20 metres every time you had to use the bathroom?

***

On October 2, 2019, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan turned five.

In a speech to a crowd in Ahmedabad city, Modi boasted that villages had “declared themselves open-defecation free,” and that in the time period, 600 million people had been given access to toilets. The whole world, he said, was delight. Three months later, the Finance Minister dedicated 2650 crores INR (~352 million USD) for sustaining the programme.

On paper, India was declared Open Defecation Free, with a few states joining the ODF status in December 2019. But the reality differs — what the paper indicates is coverage, not usage. In this sanitary tale of two cities, open defecation in Delhi or Kolkata has become a way of life for millions, not a matter of choice. Rather, it’s the result of no choice.

As urbanists or as an urban dweller we assume the India is the open defecation capital of the world because people are poor, or uneducated, and that it’s an ingrained cultural behaviour. While that may be true for a few, there are 1.35 billion people across urban and rural India. What do we say then about the 421+ million urban residents for whom open defecation is not a matter of choice, no matter how educated or uneducated, how rich or poor, how culturally biased or liberated, one is?

This disparity calls into question how can India or any other country (China, USA, Belgium, Nigeria, Indonesia, etc.) affected by — and often ignorant of — the challenge of open defecation address this multidimensional challenge?

Any action must first begin with acknowledgment of the challenge. Accept that open defecation is a reality. Accept that data hides more than tells. Accept that open defecation is not a problem of the poor. Accept that open defecation is not a local problem. Accept that one solution does not (and never will) fit all.

In light of the looming threat and pre-existing challenge of open defecation, the COVID-19 pandemic makes us reconsider the state of sanitary affairs our cities’ poor are living in. It makes us reconsider the deep-rooted challenge of open defecation which seems tough to eradicate. And it makes us accept that shit matters.

***

Mahak Agrawal is a medical candidate turned urban planner, exploring innovative, implementable, impactful solutions for pressing urban-regional challenges in her diverse works. In different capacities, Mahak has worked with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Town and Country Planning Organization, Government of India, Institute of Transport Economics, Oslo, to name a few. In 2019, she founded The Spatial Perspectives as an enterprise that uses the power of visual storytelling and open data to dismantle myths and faulty perspectives associated with spaces around the world. Based out of India, Mahak spends spare time to experiment and create sustainable art works which showcase cultural heritage of India.

Craig Boehman is an American photographer based out of Mumbai. He’s been photographing the lives of those at the “Dhakuria railway colony” in Kolkata since 2015. His photo essays of the colony have appeared in several publications, including Huff Post India. Apart from his commercial and artistic photography work, Craig hopes to raise awareness to the plights of colony residents internationally in order to bring about possible solutions to the ongoing crisis in this hazard-prone region, which in many ways resembles a war zone more than a place one would call home. 

Footnotes

[1] Basti is a hindi term often used to describe an informal settlement in urban India.

[2] The notion of ‘dirty’ in India’s sanitation history finds roots in the Laws of Manu, famously known as the Manav Dharma Shastra of 500 B.C., identifying toilets and the caste cohort ‘responsible’ for cleaning them as untouchables, thereby calling for their social and spatial separation from place of habitation.

[3] Situated on the land owned by the Indian Railways (a body of the Government of India or central government), inhabitants of the basti are designated as illegal squatter settlement. The basti and its inhabitants do not enjoy security of tenure.

[4] JJ cluster or Jhuggi Jhompri cluster is a settlement of urban poor identified by the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB), Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) as “an encroachment on public or private lands. They are therefore seen as illegal” (DUSIB, 2014).

Case Study: Oxford, UK

Social capital has been on my mind a lot these last few weeks. 

There are decades of definitions for social capital, but let us stick with Francis Fukuyama’s: the trust and cooperation that we build with our communities and institutions, which allows us to obtain resources and opportunities such as education, employment, and leisure. In other words: who we know and what we have access to as a result are essential ingredients for social sustainability. (Not to mention happiness, too.) And in times of crisis, social capital can mean survival: there is a wealth of research, for example, on the tight-knit communities that persevered through crises like Hurricane Katrina or the Chicago heat waves, compared to those that were socially, but not physically, distant from one another. In some instances, pre-existing levels of community cohesion have been better indicators of mortality rates than income.

What’s so alarming is that COVID-19, at its core, is inherently anti-social. Social distancing is a policy this time, not a consequence; it forces us to quite literally stay away from one another. Those most vulnerable to the disease are actually being told to shutter indoors. And ‘community’ has escaped online. Right now, social capital seems more important than ever.

In Oxford, we are entering the second week of lockdown here. The restaurants and pubs have emptied out; the city centre is nearly deserted; lines for grocers have two-meter gaps; and scores of students have left, leaving the streets starkly quiet for in between term time. The state-sanctioned “solitary exercise” each day has brought people to parks, which seem like the only pockets that still have pulses of life as it once was. The warming temperatures and spring blossom are now something we largely enjoy from our window sills.

But emerging from this societal disruption has been a notable sense of togetherness amongst permanent residents, frontline workers, students or faculty (both near and far), and every other actor that drives the life and economy of this city. Small groups, largely on social media, have fostered a model and space for building social capital while indoors — one that could (and should) be replicated in urban neighborhoods everywhere, as infection and death tolls rise. It involves equal doses of knowledge-sharing and community participation.

***

We’ll focus on three key pillars:

Connecting residents in need. 

An integral part of social capital is connecting not only people of similar backgrounds (your neighbors; your fellow classmates; your family and friends), but also, those of dissimilar backgrounds, be it socioeconomic, ethnic, or religious (people who don’t look or live like you).

One Facebook group, in particular, has been at the forefront of this community building: Oxford Covid-19 Mutual Aid. (The name itself has echoes of social capital thought.) As of this week, the group has over 4,500 members. Since it started, administrators have pinned a Google Form where people fill out the skills they have, or help that they’re looking for; it then links those parties together. Nearly every day, the creators put out calls for pharmacy runs, daily check-ins, and other tasks to aid Oxford’s most vulnerable. A recent post asked if anyone could briefly chat with a homeless woman, who simply wanted to speak with someone.

Oxford Hub — a social enterprise founded by students in 2007 that has since expanded across the south of England, and to all Oxford residents — has also been a crucial player. Their initiative ‘Oxford Together’ asks for your postcode, and then passes along contact information for your ‘local street champion.’ You can sign up to do local dog-walking; carry out deliveries to aging or disabled neighbors; or make phone calls to those in self-isolation. And although the community-building is smaller in scale, physically disconnected students and residents (of which I am personally privy to) are creating new virtual bonds through live concerts, yoga lessons, conversation groups, and other forms of interaction online.

Bolstering small businesses.

Small businesses such as eateries, off-license shops, or markets are notable hubs of social activity. It’s where we bump into our neighbors; where we socialize with our friends; and where we can put a name to a face of someone directly employed in our communities.

In the COVID-19 crisis, that significance has gained new meaning. Those allowed to stay open have dawned the moniker ‘essential services,’ which is always something they were — but now are officially recognized as such. And with face-to-face retail furloughed until further notice, small businesses may ultimately bear the economic brunt of COVID-19’s impending fallout. 

In order to help out those in Oxford, Facebook and WhatsApp groups are constantly sharing updates and spreadsheets with detailed lists of independent grocers still open, as well as restaurants and pubs doing take-away or delivery. The sheets are divided by neighborhood, and anyone can edit them. It aids the community-owned spaces that have been forced to adapt; for example, my local pub has joined Deliveroo (the delivery app) for the first time, and a longtime trader down the block is now selling vegetable and fruit boxes three days a week. Beyond Oxford, whether or not the diversification of services — and perhaps newfound proclivity towards our local shops — become permanent fixtures after the pandemic remains to be seen.

Supporting those on the frontline.

If social capital promotes interaction between the different layers of communities, then there’s inevitably space for recognizing those who are arguably in defense of said communities.

Most of us have likely seen the outpouring of praise for the workers on the ‘frontline’ — which, in this case, means those who still offer some sort of physical touch — everywhere, from the balcony-fit symphony of applause for healthcare workers in Spain, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere, to this arising language around grocery store and delivery workers (‘lifeline,’ ‘keeping us alive,’ ‘unsung heroes’) keeping supply chains moving. And perhaps that recognition will garner structural change, with higher wages, improved labor protections, and the like — another post-COVID effect to monitor, of course.

But apart from gestures, which hold a different kind of social relevance, online groups are leveraging existing resources — networks; businesses; etc. — to support the institutions under siege during the pandemic. Oxford Covid-19 Mutual Aid coordinated deliveries from a local Nando’s to NHS workers, and has asked residents to donate their unused bus passes (as transport services are now mostly running for these workers anyway) to hospital employees. It’s not difficult to find photos of care packages that residents are crafting for those working at John Radcliffe Hospital, or announcements from businesses offering discounts to medical workers.

***

As of this post’s publication, Oxfordshire has 121 confirmed cases of coronavirus, and current projections for the United Kingdom writ large see those numbers spiking in the coming days. What April and May will look like is unclear — not just here, of course, but worldwide. What is clear, however, is that creating the networks and pathways for strong social capital and community-building — on your block; in your neighborhood; and within your city — to fight COVID-19 must start now, wherever you may be reading this from. Especially as we brace for the apex.

John Surico is the Regional Correspondents Editor of Oxford Urbanists. He is a longtime journalist and researcher of urban affairs. Based in Oxford, he studies transport and city planning at The Bartlett, of University College London.

Strolling around Pimpri Chinchwad, a suburb of Pune city in the Indian state of Maharashtra, one can find scores of street vendors selling varieties of fruits and vegetables, each one trying to grab the attention of pedestrians with their display and holler. These fruits and vegetables are not produced within the city — more than 95 percent of the food isn’t — but the demand is.

Produced in the districts of Ahmednagar, Buldhana, Pune and Nashik, Maharashtra is the biggest producer of guava fruit in India, transporting the Peruvian fruit to different parts of the region. Despite the fruit’s short shelf life, it is also exported via traders to the markets of the United Arab Emirates, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Jordan, France, Sweden, Switzerland, amongst many others.

Ask any urban dweller in India: where does their food come from? Some would say Zomato (the Indian-based restaurant and delivery website). Others may say the kitchen. Some may say supermarkets. Rarely you’ll find a person saying that food comes from farms. It would be even more rare to find people who know their food supply chain well — from farms and wholesale markets, to retailers and kitchens. And even then, we tend to ignore the key figures in this supply chain: truck drivers.

Rajat: I encountered in Andhra Pradesh a trio of truck drivers from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh who explained to me the difference between transporting kaccha maal (perishable goods) and pakka maal (processed goods). Traveling long distances that bridge north and south of India, these truck drivers follow the broad logic as explained by one of the truckers:

“We transport pakka maal such as powder, clothes, soap, chemicals from north to south and pick up kaccha maal such as ginger, sweet lime, and tomatoes on the way back. Our seth [1] has contacts with commission agents across the country. He tells us where to go. Our job is only to drive”

Just a few days back, these drivers had transported apple from Delhi in the north to Rajahmundry in the south, and were on their way to Anantapur district in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh to pick up tomatoes which they planned to deposit in Dehradun in north India. For drivers, however, the kaccha maal offers a better deal than pucca maal. They get a chance to earn an inaam (or prize) if they manage to transport it in time, as narrated by one of the drivers:  

"If we manage to transport the tomatoes within five days, our pay will be topped up by three thousand rupees. It'll only take us two days though. Our truck is new so it shoots like a horse. And since it's the three of us, one of us is always driving, even if others are resting."

***

In essence, it is a truck driver who brings fruits, vegetables and other food crops from the farms to our kitchens. How? Well, there are different functional modes for this chain. In simple terms, a farmer produces a crop, and takes it to a mandi (wholesale market) located in urban or peri-urban areas of India, where the produce is then auctioned off by commissioning agents of the state-run Agricultural Produce Market Committee [2]. This produce is then bought off by a few buyers, who sell it off to local retailers and vendors that we find in our neighbourhood markets.

But the supply chain isn’t always this simple.

There are several players in this chain, and it varies with the type and scale of produce and market demand. For example, a small farmer often transports the produce to a mandi for auction by themselves. Sometimes, a middleman buys off produce from multiple small farmers and transports it from one district of a state to the most accessible — access in terms of distance, market price and contacts with commissioning agents — mandi. For large farmers, there may be one or many middlemen who buy their produce directly from farm at prices lower than the prices at which it is auctioned off in the mandi. In several instances, a middleman may buy a farm or orchard, and sell off the produce via mandi, where the farmer becomes an agricultural labourer. There are numerous variations of the farm-to-city food supply chain in India, but one thing remains common across all the variations: it is the truck drivers who travel hundreds and thousands of kilometres to bring food from farms to our plates every day.

Rajat: On the way from Mumbai to Delhi, I remember a truck zooming past us with ‘Vegetable Express’ written across its back. When I asked my companion Rajinder why it's called Express, he explained:

"That's because these vegetable mandi trucks are the fastest of the lot. They cover the distance between Delhi and Bombay within a day. Ekdum Rajdhani ki tarah (Just like the famous Rajdhani express train). The drivers even eat at the steering wheel. Near Udaipur, a person waits for them with dinner. They don't have the time to go to dhabas[3]. When one guy eats, the other drives. It's a non-stop journey for these guys. In fact, the owner of the truck hands over twice the amount for diesel expenses since they drive at inefficient speeds to get the truck there on time. For all this hard work, they get an inaam or prize (3000-4000 INR or 40-55 USD) at the end. It' a lot of money if you think about it."

***

It is true that truck drivers travel hundreds and thousands of miles to bring food from farm to our cities, but is this sustainable? The answer is not a simple yes or no.

Globally, cities’ spatial extent, population and demand for food are rising, and will continue to increase exponentially. India, for instance, is home to 1.38 billion persons. Nearly 35 percent of this billion plus population lives in ~8,000 cities and towns of varied shapes, sizes and functions. This percentage of urban population meets its food demands from agriculture produced in the rural and peri-urban areas. The skewed distribution — and growth — of population inclined towards urban, rather than rural, areas raise concerns of food security, and how rural areas can augment production, as well as manage processing and distribution to cater to both urban and rural demand.

In the late 1990s, the concept of urban agriculture gained traction worldwide. Discussions on the value of urban agriculture or urban farming, in response to food security and reduction of poverty, grew. But urban farming has been a common practice — of supplementing rural food production and promoting water conservation — throughout the evolution of human settlements. It is not a modern concept.

After 2002, the ‘Eat Local’ or ‘locavore’ movement gained popularity and continues to be popular in select geographies and demographic groups. But the movement has been often criticised as an elitist movement benefiting cafes, restaurants and select small farmers rather than serve its original purpose of promoting urban farming and eating food produced in urban and/or peri-urban areas.

From 2008 on, dialogues and discussions on urban agriculture expanded to include dimensions of sustainability, climate change, livelihood, and land policies, apart from poverty and food security. In terms of climate crisis, a plethora of scientific experiments and research indicate a decline in agriculture productivity and output with changing climate. A rule of thumb states that a 1-degree Celsius rise of temperature reduces crop yields by 10 per cent. From a sustainability perspective, urban agriculture can help augment food demand whilst addressing inequalities of access, and challenges of hunger, malnutrition, migration, resource-intensive production, distribution and consumption.

Urbanists and crop scientists have been working in their own fields for decades to experiment with urban farming. Urbanists’ experimentation revolves around planning, policies, design and architecture, while crop scientists and agriculture specialists’ experiment with genes of crops and seeds that can survive and support urban demands amidst decreasing agriculture producers and cultivable area.

In the past few years, several architecture and design firms across the world have joined the urban agriculture movement, and are incorporating urban farming into the built environment. For instance, Riverpark Farm in New York, designed by ORE Design + Technology, is Manhattan’s largest (and entirely mobile) urban farm, which uses unconventional spaces and technologies for crop harvesting in a densely populated urban ecosystem. While it does not really augment the city’s food demand, it exhibits a way forward. In another example from Vietnam, actions and initiatives to incorporate urban agriculture in the urban fabric are cropping up. AgriNesture is one such project by H&P Architects that aims to augment housing demand, while simultaneously promoting agriculture and creating jobs for local residents.

But is this enough to even make a dent in demand?

Experiences from the past and present have shown that urban agriculture has not had a significant impact when it comes to urban food security or urban food demand. But that does not mean that it cannot in the future. In fact, the experiences indicate that:

1. Urban farming is possible, even in densely populated areas.

2. There is market demand for urban farming, which has the potential to grow in the near future.

3. Urban farming can be an effective move towards urban food security, if — and only if — all the stakeholders in the urban food ecosystem see a value or incentive with urban farming that helps further key stakeholders’ bottom line.

To truly realise the potentials of urban agriculture, which is already practiced by >800 million persons across the world, it is essential for planners, policymakers, designers, etc. to work with stakeholders engaged in the farm-to-city food chain, and develop multi-pronged measures — relating to its legal, institutional, policy-driven, technological, and informational aspects — that link together for effective urban agriculture. 

***

Mahak Agrawal is a medical candidate turned urban planner, exploring innovative, implementable, impactful solutions for pressing urban-regional challenges in her diverse works. In different capacities, Mahak has worked with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Town and Country Planning Organization, Government of India, Institute of Transport Economics, Oslo, to name a few. In 2019, she founded The Spatial Perspectives as an enterprise that uses the power of visual storytelling and open data to dismantle myths and faulty perspectives associated with spaces around the world. Based out of India, Mahak spends spare time to experiment and create sustainable art works which showcase cultural heritage of India.

Rajat Ubhaykar is the author of the critically acclaimed travelogue Truck de India: A Hitchhiker's Guide to Hindustan based on his 10,000 km-long journeys across India hitchhiking with truck drivers, published by Simon & Schuster in October 2019. He trained as an electrical engineer at IIT Kanpur, and went on to study journalism at the Asian College of Journalism after a stint in management consulting. A recipient of the PoleStar Award in 2016 for his reportage, his work has appeared in publications such as Mint, Outlook Business, Roads & Kingdoms, and Madras Courier. He lives in Mumbai, and spends his spare time reviewing books, collecting trivia, and exploring India's archaeological sites.

***

[1] ‘Seth’ is a Hindi term for boss

[2] Agricultural Produce (and Livestock) Market Committee or APMC is a marketing board established by a state government in India under the provisions of APLM Act to ensure farmers are safeguarded from exploitation by large retailers, as well as ensuring the farm to retail price spread does not reach excessively high levels.

[3] small restaurants situated along national highways in India catering to truck drivers and more

As we all know, climate change is causing uninterrupted changes on the globe, like sea-level rise, ice-melting, flooding, and the wildfires we’re seeing rip across Australia. Due to immense energy demand and sprawl, land-locked urban clusters — especially in hotter climates — are contributing an inequitable portion of greenhouse gas emissions, disproportionately inflicting social, economic and environmental harm on small island nations and coastal areas, which contribute less per capita. That includes Delhi.

Delhi is emerging not only as a hub of economic activity and urbanisation — but, also rampant pollution, diseases, and greenhouse gas emissions. In October 2019, air pollution marks had crossed all thresholds and reached a number of 999 — the highest machines can record. Delhi resembled a toxic gas chamber, and pushed the government to take stringent measures to avoid any major catastrophe. The regulators and policymakers have been aware of the pollution conundrum, and have been taking actions for two decades; yet the air pollution levels are only increasing, as air pollution from other states also accumulates.

So what is Delhi doing? First and foremost, major actions have been taken in the transportation sector — now the most significant contributor to GHGs — to make the city’s air breathable. That includes running the largest bus service run by compressed natural gas (CNG) in the world, as well as bulking up the largest and busiest Metro train network in India, and encouraging less-polluting private transport modes, like human-pulled rickshaws, CNG-run autos, and private pool cab services. Aimed at shifting people over to public transportation instead of private vehicles, the modal shares are relatively energy efficient. But even though public transportation in Delhi is robust, the private vehicle ownership has only increased in last two decades to 11.2 million registered vehicle in 2018, and thousands of other visiting Delhi every day, partially offsetting potential reductions from public transportation.

Delhi’s public transportation system is bolstered by regulations for private vehicles, like its “Odd-Even Policy.” This policy only allows even-numbered plated vehicles on roads on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and odd-numbered vehicles on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Sunday is generally exempt from the rule. This policy was recently adopted by the Delhi Government in October, due to the massive air pollution build-up in Delhi. The objective of this policy is to promote greener traveling habits amongst people, like taking public transportation, and car-pooling. The transportation sector policies are bringing in positive changes and should serve as a case study in other cities, but a disclaimer: people continue to find loopholes.

Besides transportation, there are more than ten coal-fire power plants in the Delhi National Capital Region (NCR), most of which are beyond prescribed emissions norms. The central government has announced conversion of retired thermal plants into solar-run plants, under the national Renewable Generation Obligation. Additionally, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation’s plan to switch its trains over to solar power is in the pipelines. Most of these plans aim at shifting to cleaner energy forms in urban transport, like the CNG-run buses.

In 2018, vertical gardens were installed in Delhi, in order to reduce its dust and pollution. These gardens were claimed to have brought down pollution levels; however, today, these gardens have withered away, due to lack of maintenance. One of the most recent actions in Delhi is the popular “Smog Tower”, that is installed in East Delhi. The tower purifies air in around a radius of 500 to 750 metres of radius. Given its effectiveness, a long-term solution includes an expensive measure to put “smog towers” in Delhi NCR within a huge area.

Yet due to climate change, here’s an inevitable truth: Delhi will see hot days multiple by 22 by the end of the decade. People will be coerced to use more air conditioning and electricity during these hotter days, contributing even further to climate change. While the government intends to take stricter measures in Delhi to decrease not only the contribution of Delhi to climate change (mitigation), but also, the impacts of climate change in Delhi (adaptation), it is vital that Delhi must create a reality where both top-bottom and bottom-up approaches are allowed to achieve a livable city for future generations.

Chhaya Bhardwaj is a United Nations trained international lawyer and a 2019 Local Pathways Fellow. Currently she is teaching environmental law and public international law at various law schools in India.

In the past, the built environment was shaped in closer correspondence with the particularities of each landscape. Construction techniques were designed to interact with their surroundings, relying often on local materials. Yet the expansion of globalization has resulted in a progressive homogenization of architecture. An iconic example of this is what in 1932 Philip Johnson and Henry-Russel Hitchcock defined as The International Style.[1] This style included a number of architectural movements that emerged in Europe after World War I, which ­spread later throughout the globe. Even when the value of this homogenization process is still controversial, the style put in evidence the tendency in modern architecture to make local particularities irrelevant. Decades later, identical skyscrapers, airports, malls and gas stations became icons of modern cities, dominated by orthogonal forms and concrete use.

However, the heterogenous effects of climate change are pushing architecture to recover its vernacular gaze. More frequent and intense catastrophes such as rainfall, droughts, floods, hurricanes – amongst other such events – are threatening cities in diverse ways. Governmental efforts to face specific hazards are resulting in the emergence of situated adaptation strategies. An example comes from responses to the increasing threat of coastal flooding in New York where floods are produced mostly by heavy rainfall, faster melting of snow and overflow of surrounding rivers. In response, decades ago a baseline was determined for construction within the city, signaling what came to be known as a Base Flood Elevation (BFE), which defined the minimum altitude in which utilities had to be placed.[2]  In the 2010s, this line was moved two feet up to increase protection, yet allowing to build an additional floor in compensation.[3] As a result, a waterproof ground level and a light upper floor may become a key feature in flooding zones across the city. Additionally, green infrastructure to expand water infiltration and to reduce flooding is being implemented within the city, along with changes in coastal defenses. Also, in the US, the resilience strategy in Greater Miami contemplates the construction of coastline protection, including sea walls to curb flooding due to sea level rise.

Similarly, in Da Nang, Vietnam, coastal sea walls are planned as well. According to current scientific prognoses, precipitations will increase 4% by 2050 in the area, generating a cascade of cyclones and tropical depressions that will result in further flood damage and water shortages. Unlike the US, the strategy, in this case, is based on predicting the most vulnerable zones to help relocate residents.[4] Moreover, new envelopes and specific construction detailing of houses are being installed to reduce housing damages. The growth and planning of the city – as well as of its architecture – is being defined by future floods.[5]

Yet, droughts and heatwaves are also contributing to define future architecture. In Cape Town (South Africa), the near-exclusive dependence on rainfall for fresh water supply makes droughts catastrophic events. As a result, lawns and water-sensitive plants are being replaced with alternative local species adjusted to the dryer climate.[6] Concerning overheating, recently Paris, France, experienced one of the worst heatwaves of its history when over 700 residents died. A relevant aspect contributing to this urban heat effect is the abundance of concrete and asphalt in cities. Due to this, a program signed in 2017 aims to convert 761 schools – an area of nearly 70 hectares – into green islands, allowing to reduce average city temperatures significantly.[7] As in Paris, in Tel Aviv, Israel, overheating is also a persistent threat. Because of this, local policymakers are promoting strategically emplaced pilot projects to reduce the overall temperature by 2080 based on scientific predictions of the most exposed areas to heat impacts.[8]

The cases mentioned above represent examples of locally sensitive policies that other cities around the world may emulate. Yet, in mirroring the sea walls in Miami, the waterproof podium in New York, the new envelopes for houses in Da Nang, the water-sensitive vegetation in Cape Town, or the cooling spots in Paris and Tel Aviv architects and urban planners should keep in mind that strategies need to be designed for the particularities of each place. Climate change – undoubtedly brought on faster by globalization – is forcing architecture to rethink situationally its relationship with its near environment, which necessarily requires leaving the precepts of modernism and returning to a new vernacular architecture, namely one that is ecologically attentive to the heterogenous effects of climate change. 

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[1] Hitchcock, H. R., & Johnson, P. (1997). The international style. WW Norton & Company.

[2] Aerts, J. C. J. H., & Botzen, W. J. W. (2011). Climate change impacts on pricing long-term flood insurance: A comprehensive study for the Netherlands. Global Environmental Change, 21(3), 1045–1060.

[3] NYC Planning. (2016). Flood Resilient Construction. (Department of City Planning, Ed.). New York City.

[4] Da Nang People’s Committee. (2016). Resilience Strategy for Da Nang, Vietnam. 100 Resilient Cities.

[5] 100 Resilient Cities. (2017). Cities Taking Action How the 100RC Network is Building Urban Resilience, 1–73. Retrieved from http://100resilientcities.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/WEB_170720_Summit-report_100rc-1.pdf

[6] Cape Town Resilience Strategy. (2019). 100 Resilient Cities.

[7] Paris Municipality. (2018). Paris Resilience Strategy. 100 Resilient Cities.

[8] Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality. (2017). The Strategic Plan for Tel-Aviv–Yafo. 100 Resilient Cities.

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Eduardo Wiegand is an architect. He completed the Wood Program at Aalto University and a Masters in Interdisciplinary Design for the Built Environment at the University of Cambridge. ewiegand@uc.cl

Cristián Simonetti is a Master and Doctor in Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen and teaches at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. csimonetti@uc.cl

A few days into 2020, the Paris Agreement looms large over the 197 states of the world demanding urgent climate action. Unfortunately, COP25, which was meant to frame the rulebook for the Paris Agreement, raised more questions than solutions. Having come to a dissatisfactory end with no clear plans or targets, the only silver lining is probably the promise of increased action by the developed nations of the European Union. 

The EU has pledged carbon neutrality by 2050, with some member states being even more ambitious, like Finland aiming for net zero emissions by 2035; Sweden, 2040. These targets come in the wake of the revelation that global average temperatures have already reached 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels - less than 1°C away from the Paris target of 2°C. In fact, the UN IPCC recommends 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, which can be achieved only if worldwide emissions are halved by 2030. There is also increasing pressure for greater investments in renewable energy, whose production needs to more than double in 10 years. 

But what do these figures mean for different countries around the globe? In the last decade, climate change has resulted in extreme weather events — 68% of which were induced by human activities. These have affected both rich and poor nations, big and small, developed and the developing. However, disproportionality prevails both in terms of impact and climate action.

While steps to combat climate change are being discussed by developed countries, developing nations are still struggling to set targets. Impeded by a lack of awareness and expertise, inadequate data and insufficient funds, developing nations have not yet jumped on the climate action bandwagon. Another critical reason for inaction is the battle against more foundational issues, like poverty and ‘underdevelopment,’ which puts climate change on the back burner. For instance, Nigeria witnesses extreme poverty rise by six people each minute and was home to the highest number of the world’s poorest people in 2018: 87 million. India bagged second place, with 70.6 million people living in extreme poverty. In such conditions of poverty, sustainability and climate action become a double-edged sword, as they imply less fuel burning and slower development. 

Thus, in order to maintain GDP growth and employment, developing countries have not set net zero emission targets. Being huge exporters of fossil fuels, Russia, the Middle East, Africa and several parts of Asia will face severe development hits if such targets are set; hence, their plans focus on emissions reduction instead. 

India’s case is especially interesting because it is one of the four largest countries that can make or break the efforts taken by all other nations; China, India, the EU and the US alone accounted for about 60 per cent of emissions from fossil fuel combustion in 2017. Also, India is facing some of the worst consequences of climate change. India had the highest number of casualties caused by climate change in 2018, with 2,081 deaths. Furthermore, according to the UN World Migration Report 2020, at 2.678 million people, India had the highest number of people displaced by disasters and extreme weather events in 2018. 

Despite these staggering numbers, India’s climate action is mostly on paper and its measures for economic development are almost counterproductive. For instance, India has committed to generate 40 per cent of its power from non-fossil sources by 2030. However, there is a continued dependency on fossil fuel: coal production has increased over 8% in just one year, and in the next five years, 55 new coal mines and the expansion of 193 existing mines have been planned to boost coal production.

India’s goal of reaching 30% e-vehicle penetration by 2030 is also questionable since EVs presently account for only 1% of total vehicle sales in India. Powerful car lobbyists and lax regulations against vehicles running on fossil fuels hinder progress in this field. Another climate change goal is increasing tree cover to serve as a carbon sink for 2.5-3 billion tonnes of CO2 by 2030. Despite this aim, deforestation is still widely prevalent in India — one-fifth of the country’s tree cover has been lost in the past two decades, with over 19000 hectares of forests lost just in 2017-18. 

One of the most yawning gaps, however, in India’s climate action plan, which can be observed across the world as well, is the lack of a local climate action framework; the grand plans at the national level rarely trickle down to concrete steps at the regional level, where there can be real tangible change. Nonetheless, this absence of a ‘rule book’ at the smaller scale has led to an interesting turn of events in India: increasing local action as a result of the city’s interests and the rise of eco-citizens. 

Delhi, for example, which is one of the most polluted cities in the world, is procuring 1000 new e-buses to abate the worsening air quality. Earlier this year, Chennai passed a radical law banning single-use plastic. The city has also been collaborating with local NGOs to improve waste management — waste that goes to infills has been reduced by 11% in just 3 months. Another inspiring scenario is the collective community action including enforcement of water conservation and maintenance of compost pits for waste management, by Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) and other groups in different parts of the country.

While tiny drops such as these make a mighty ocean indeed, more concerted efforts are required. Along with targets for climate action by 2030 and 2050, countries should be setting annual plans to help achieve long-term goals. These in turn should be converted into strategies for federal states, cities and other regional levels to implement on the ground. At the international level, it is pivotal for knowledge exchange and capacity building to take place. For instance, India could learn a lot from the UK about renewable energy production, and circulation. Another global intervention could be greater climate finance flows from developed to developing countries, which could result in more innovative measures for climate action, while also helping reduce the disproportionate action. Most important of all, there is an urgent need for greater political will with young leaders at the helm, for successful climate action.

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With an undergraduate degree in architecture, Nashwa Naushad worked at the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) in India for 3 years, focused on battling car-oriented growth and creating infrastructure for non-motorised and public transport. She is especially known for her expertise in sustainable street design, having supervised the creation of over 50 kilometers of such streets and co-authored numerous publications for ITDP including a National Framework for ‘Complete Streets’ adopted by the Indian Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. Nashwa is now exploring other urban issues and solutions on her Masters program at the University College London through the Chevening Scholarship.

As COP 25 opens its doors in Madrid this week, I would like to highlight that climate summits are no longer only about the 13th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG): “climate action.” Rather, they most now encompass all of the United Nation’s global goals in order to be successful.

Climate change mitigation must be inclusive, or it won’t be. This is the main lesson learnt in 2019. From indigenous uprisings in Quito to the Gilets Jaunes movement in France, it is evident that people won’t accept to reduce their carbon footprint if this means digging the social divide even further. In Ecuador, the most vocal group rising up in protest are rural indigenous communities, and, in France, rural dwellers. In both cases, these groups rely on their cars or motorcycles to access essential goods and services that are more and more concentrated in cities. This implies that fuel is a non-negligible part of their budgets. Governments are very aware of this fact now, and have decided to pull off proposed fuel taxes or maintain fuel subsidies, at least in the short term. Popular dissatisfaction will also catalyze longer term trends, like the carbon market’s turn towards sustainability in its broader sense.

Climate change and sustainability have historically been dealt with as separate issues. Yet, since the launch of the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement, they have been slowly converging. A concrete sphere that reflects this trend is the global carbon market, where the right to emit a ton of CO2 is traded. Carbon standards — both voluntary, and regulated — are increasingly including SDGs in their criteria matrix. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction project sectors, such as renewables energies, waste management and reforestation, do overlap with SDGs, like sustainable cities and communities, or economic growth and decent work. 

Recently created standards — such as SD Vista from Verra or the Gold Standard for the Global Goals — illustrate the growing importance of addressing the three pillars of sustainability while tackling climate change. Impact monetization is expanding its scope beyond carbon pricing.

For a carbon standard to include SDG indicators, the methodology to quantify them needs to be standardized across regions and in some case adapted to include cultural differences. SDGs performance indexes are often constructed in order to hold countries accountable to attain their targets. Similarly, projects developers in the carbon industry need to be hold accountable for their quantifiable impact on local communities and monetarily compensated for advancing the SDGs. 

The challenge is compiling project-scale data in rural areas of developing countries, where there are often no prior governmental indicators. Once an appropriate methodology has been agreed upon, project-based SDG quantification can be the basis for the issuance of financial derivative, which are called sustainability or SDG credits, akin to carbon credits. SDG quantification is ultimately a tool to implement the principle of results-based finance.

These credits would also be a means to offset private sector’s footprint on a specific development component. For instance, if a company, even after implementing internal precautions to mitigate its impact on biodiversity, still affects a given species’s habitat, it could purchase SDG credits to fund projects protecting that endangered species elsewhere. The same principles used for climate change mitigation such as additionality and double counting should be applied in this case. This is useful for making SCR more quantifiable, accountable and less prone to green-washing.

SDG credits are just the top of the iceberg in terms of convergence between sustainable development and climate change mitigation. Without the former, the urgently needed inflection of green house gas emissions might stumble upon social unrest movements again and again, like what we’re seeing as this decade comes to a close.

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Andrés Melendro Blanco currently serves as a sustainability consultant at ALLCOT Group, where he is dedicated to aligning climate change mitigation projects with the UN's 17 SDG. He previously worked as a consultant for UN-Habitat and as an urban development analyst at ProBogotá, a think-tank dedicated to fostering Bogotá’s sustainability. He holds a bachelor’s degree cum laude in Political Science and a master’s degree in Urban Policy, both from Sciences Po Paris.

Increasingly, cities are home to a full spectrum of climate action — innovations in green retrofitting, and sustainable mobility; frameworks for ‘good growth,’ and resiliency planning; and battlegrounds for protest, and social upheaval over the current climate crisis. Where they go from here will help determine the larger international conversation around what the global community can do to keep temperatures below the infamous 1.5-degree Celsius threshold.

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Just by definition, cities should be leading the way on climate action. If the UN projections are correct — with two-thirds of the world’s population living in cities by 2050, and the brunt of carbon emissions coming from urban environments — then cities are where both the problems and solutions to combating climate change will naturally lie. But that has not been the accepted discourse since the rise of the environmental movement in the 1970s: sustainable development goals and strategies have largely focused on nation-states, not cities, to coordinate and implement global action. 

Regardless, cities have charted their own zero-carbon futures, through powerful multi-city alliances like C40 and ICLEI. But more recently, the onus on cities has gained a more profound traction, as the policy differences between nation-states and their cities have notably diverged. 

Take, for example, the United States. When President Donald Trump announced the country’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement in 2017, he remarked that he was “elected to represent Pittsburgh, not Paris.” Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh mayor said he would commit the city to the Paris goals, in opposition to the administration. This action was supplemented by countless local and state governments — and even some city transit agencies, like New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)  — pledging to the agreement, thereby creating a splintered reality in one of the world’s highest-carbon-producing countries.

Either as complementing national policies or as an alternative in politically insidious contexts, institutional innovation is crucial in order to produce the several potential arrangements depending on contexts, actors involved, and challenges to be addressed.Yet the role that cities can play in tackling these goals require several conditions in order to push forward on some of the most pressing issues ahead of us. 

Most significant, perhaps, is power devolution, which should be at the forefront of any discussion on governance innovation — acting as the institutional backbone to harnessing the power of cities in adapting core practices to revert the current climate crisis. Decentralising power could be a useful mean to convey more ambitious agendas towards climate change that then could push back central governments. 

That is the case of the Scottish government, which, since the introduction of the Climate Change Act in 2009, has redefined its policy directions for addressing the subject compared to Westminster and the EU. Now, ten years later, they are pushing for an even more progressive policy shift by declaring a climate change emergency. 

Give cities a seat at the top of the table is a powerful claim in order to align actions and policy innovation by integrating cities to multilateral diplomacy. Notably, the emergence of C40 as a platform to push the global climate change emergency further into action is an illustrative example of this. Recently, at the C40 World Mayors Summit in Copenhagen, a group of mayors — including those from Paris, Copenhagen, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney and Tokyo, and led by Eric Garcetti from Los Angeles (and C40 elected chair) — have pledged for worldwide city-level support for a global Green New Deal.

This call is a direct response to intergovernmental action being blocked by a small group of powerful, science-skeptic governments, representing the interests of the fossil-fuel industry. The core principles of the Green New Deal are of the highest relevance to keep global warming below the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement, by committing to emission cuts from the sectors most responsible for the current climate crisis: transportation; buildings; industry; and waste. 

Climate action, however, is just that: action. What remains to be seen is just how cities will forge a collective future ahead, and actually back up pledges with policy. The road ahead is difficult: Los Angeles, for example, is still one of the most car-dependent cities in the world; Rio de Janeiro, the home of the first Earth Summit, recently signed onto the C40 pledge, but the mayor is known for cutting spending on “non-essential” items, not growing them. 

So cities will not simply act on climate because of their inherent nature; it takes political will, popular push-and-pull, and pragmatic thinking. In our next Monthly Focus, we’ll showcase a few cities that are putting climate action front and center at the top of their agenda — where it belongs.

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Ignacio Pérez is a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford. ignacio.perez@ouce.ox.ac.uk / @JIPerezK

John Surico is a journalist, researcher, and MSc candidate in the Bartlett School of Planning, at University College London. john.surico.19@ucl.ac.uk / @JohnSurico

Since the last decade, urban and peri-urban agriculture has been designated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) as a fundamental strategy to provide means of subsistence. Following this trend, since 2006, Rio de Janeiro’s City Hall has been developing the Hortas Cariocas Program (PHC), aiming to encourage urban agriculture and extract the various social and environmental services inherent to the practice. Inside an urban scenario of extreme inequality, and legitimized by the public powers for centuries, we discuss how the Hortas Cariocas Program, with the efforts of its founders, contributes in a practical way to the improvement of the quality of life to the citizens of Rio.

Since the last decade, urban and peri-urban agriculture has been designated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) as a fundamental strategy to provide means of subsistence that are resistant to economic disruptions and increasing food prices, as well as contribute to the social and ecological development of cities, bringing up important issues in environmental preservation and food safety. In Brazil, the practice was ranked as one of the Landscape Guidelines for Brazilian cities in the 21st century, at the XIII National Meeting for the Teaching of Landscape Architecture in Architecture and Urban Planning Schools in Brazil (ENEPEA), which happened in Salvador (BA), in 2016.

THE HORTAS CARIOCAS PROGRAM (PHC)

Following this trend, since 2006, Rio de Janeiro’s City Hall has been developing the Hortas Cariocas Program (PHC), aiming to encourage urban agriculture, and extract the various social and environmental services inherent to the practice. Created by the Municipal Secretary of Environment (SMAC), the program specifically targets underprivileged areas, thereby providing work opportunities, reducing irregular occupation rates of vacant lands, boosting social inclusion, offering food genre of higher quality, and paying closer attention to social groups in situation of food un-safety (O’Reilly, 2014). 

According to Júlio César Barros, an agricultural engineer who founded the project, the initiative currently covers about 40 vegetable gardens distributed throughout the city, partly located both in socially vulnerable areas and public schools. In an interview for Green My Favela, Barros highlights that one of the main objectives of the initiative is to popularize the consumption of organic foods by low-income populations, and give them access to the benefits embedded in the consumption of these foods. 

Image 1: Spatial distribution of the vegetable gardens in Rio de Janeiro. Map: PAISA-PROURB-UFRJ

PROJECT GUIDELINES

The initiative — which has lasted through different municipal administrations — predominantly helps to institute social practices. Therefore, to get help from City Hall, citizens from a certain area in which the urban and community garden could be implemented and managed must demonstrate an interest in cultivating food or getting help for an already-initiated production unit. The idea is that the protagonist would be the average citizen, and the vegetable gardens would then follow a “bottom-up” structure, started first by the community and with posterior technical and financial subsidies from City Hall.

The team that develops the tasks in the gardens is mostly composed of members from the community or by students and staff, when in the case of gardens located in the public school network. The size of the team varies according to the size of the unit and it is necessary that each group has a person in charge with previous knowledge in horticulture (Silva, 2019). 

The PHC initiative posits that the gardens associated with the project gain autonomy with time and, therefore, can be emancipated from government funding when ready. Being untied from the support given by City Hall, the emancipated gardens subsequently give space so that other initiatives can be assisted by the project.

For Barros, a particular strength of the program is the existence of financial help to the garden workers. The work developed in the production units is stimulated by City Hall with compensations according to the function performed by the worker. “Volunteering actions in poorer communities tend to get emptier, because people need to supply basic needs,” he said in a statement to Green My Favela in 2015.

In addition to the financial aid given by City Hall, the workers also benefit from the resources generated by the commercialization of food produced in the gardens. The project establishes that half of the production must be donated to daycare centers, nursing homes, shelters, or families in need. The production units are free to commercialize the other half; however, the project orientates the reinvestment of the partial profit, overseeing that the organic produce be sold for accessible prices. But in the case of gardens inside public schools, there is no commercialization of produces: all food is utilized in school meals or donated to students, staff and teachers of the institution.

THE MANGUINHOS GARDEN

Designed in 2013, one of the most emblematic units of the project is the Manguinhos Garden, which exists in a community in the city’s Zona Norte, or North Zone. According to O’Reily (2014, p.49), the space was known as the biggest crack-consuming area of Rio de Janeiro, marked by the presence of drug abuse, insalubrity, and violence. Yet today, it houses Latin America’s biggest urban vegetable garden, with more than 300 vegetable beds. It produces organic vegetables and reconnects people to the processes that involve production and consumption of food.

Image 2: Manguinhos Garden Layout, implanted under the transmission lines in the Manguinhos Favela. Image: PAISA-PROURB-UFRJ

CHALLENGES

Inside an urban scenario of extreme inequality, legitimized by the public powers for centuries — as revealed by the history of the urban evolution of Rio de Janeiro (Abreu, 2013) — the Hortas Cariocas Program, with the efforts of its founders, contributes in a practical way to the improvement of the quality of life to citizens of Rio who have been historically unassisted by the government. However, there is still much to be done, in regards to structuring these spaces in order to expand the social ecological services that urban agriculture can offer (Silva, 2019). It is important to highlight the necessity of multidisciplinary and collective construction of these spaces, in a way where architecture and urbanism can fulfill a number of other functions, may they be educational; environmental; of cultural recovery; or, of promoting positive sociabilities in the city (Santandreu & Lovo, 2007). The absence of a multi-functional and fluid landscape design, for example, as a part of the institutional support given by City Hall, ends up reflecting a spatial and programmatic rigidity that restricts the services offered by the Hortas Cariocas gardens to the city.

To accompany the project, follow their page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/HORTAS-CARIOCAS-146283172142134/)

Douglas dos Santos Silva is an architect and urbanist and a Master in Landscape Architecture by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Currently he is linked to the research group PAISA (Paisagem, Investigação e Sistemas Ambientais) of the Post-Grad Program in Urbanism (PROURB) in the same university.

References: 

Abreu, Maurício.  Evolução urbana do Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Pereira Passos, 2013

Barros, Júlio Cesar. Hortas Cariocas, Rio de Janeiro. Entrevista concedida a GlobalCAD/Green My Favela. GMF, 2015. Disponível em: www.greenmyfavela.org. Acesso em: 19/09/2019.

O’REILLY, Érika de Mattos. Agricultura Urbana – Um Estudo De Caso Do Projeto Hortas Cariocas Em Manguinhos, Rio De Janeiro. Projeto de graduação do Curso de Engenharia Ambiental, Escola Politécnica/UFRJ, 2014.

Organização das Nações Unidas para Alimentação e Agricultura – FAO. Horticultura Urbana e Periurbana, Cidades mais verdes, 2015. Disponível em: www.fao.org/ag/agp/greenercities/pt/hup/meios_de_subsistencia.html.

Programa Hortas Cariocas. Prefeitura do Rio de Janeiro, 2019. Secretaria Municipal de Meio Ambiente - SMAC. Disponível em: www.rio.rj.gov.br/web/smac/hortas-cariocas. Acesso em: 19/09/2019.

SANTANDREU, Alain & LOVO, Ivana Cristina. Panorama da agricultura urbana e periurbana no brasil e diretrizes políticas para sua promoção. Belo Horizonte: IPES/Rede RUAF/MDS, 2007. 

SILVA, Douglas dos Santos. Alimento, cidade e desenho: a poética do projeto paisagístico na agricultura urbana. Dissertação de mestrado em Arquitetura Paisagística, FAU-UFRJ, 2019

The story of cities is also the story of managing food production and consumption. The relationship between urban living and attaining quality nutrition, or food safety, is clearly stated in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. While simple, innovative solutions target data collection and urban agriculture, food scarcity remains a major challenge in cities worldwide. There’s a long road ahead for food security as a planning priority.

The way mankind relates to their food is intrinsically related to the way cities have been formed. The first-ever human settlements related to the ability to produce crops, and over the centuries, more efficient agriculture allowed for the advent of trade, markets, and eventually cities. But as technology and social relations developed to shape our built environment, our day-to-day activities seemed increasingly disconnected from this primal yet vital ability to produce and care for our own food. 

From large urban swathes without nearby food production to droughts and potential famine driven by climate change, the challenges addressed by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals can be interpreted as a panorama of themes inexplicably related to that primary notion of humankind: obtaining food. According to the World Urbanization Prospects 2018, the percentage of the world’s population living in cities will grow from 55 percent in 2018 to 68 percent by 2050, and, so, too, will the concern that everybody can properly and safely eat. “In food - the way it is grown, produced, consumed, traded, transported, stored and marketed - lies the fundamental connection,” one 2015 FAO’s report states, “between people and the planet, and the path to inclusive and sustainable economic growth.” 

Food safety relates to the “access to sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food,” which “is key to sustaining life and promoting good health,” the World Health Organization writes. Assuring food safety requires providing for sustainable food systems, which are the combination of all “elements (environment, people, inputs, processes, infrastructures, institutions, etc) and activities that relate to the production, processing, distribution, preparation and consumption of food, and the outputs of these activities, including socio-economic and environmental outcome,” according to the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition. In this manner, having a sustainable food system is not only ensuring future global availability of food, but, also, tying the three dimensions of sustainability – environmental, social and economic – to the four dimensions of food security: availability, access, utilization, and stability.

Bringing the production of food into the city in an environmentally, socially, economically safe and respectful way has been a strategy to change our food system into a more sustainable one. While many environmentally-sound architectural designs pop up, it’s still a reality that most of our urban citizens — especially those in peripheral areas — are denied access to arable land, which impacts their health and well-being. No one food garden on a skyscraper rooftop has the ability to solve that issue. However, making small, residual urban spaces productive; creating opportunities for collective development of vegetable gardens; and helping degraded areas of the city transform themselves into greener, food productive ones can create more resilient, healthy and better fed communities.

It’s important to bear in mind that such interventions are subject to the urban regulatory framework, especially for land-use. From a planning perspective, much energy can be directed to promoting food safety by mapping and indicating specific areas in the city primarily dedicated to the production of food, or by creating incentives for those interested in developing urban agriculture experiences. 

Like other urban issues, achieving food safety presents different challenges to different regions. Research in Tamale, Ghana, for example, points to using drones as a tool to inform the planning authorities on the land available for urban and periurban Agriculture – as the sheer lack of data can be an impeditive to planning for urban farming in developing countries. Meanwhile, in the U.S., 50 percent of planners and members of the American Planning Association state to have “non-existent or minimal” engagement with food systems as a significant priority. These missed opportunities could account for an annual food production of 100+ million tonnes, energy savings of up to 15 billion kilowatt hours, and the prevention of up to 57 billion cubic meters in stormwater runoff annually, according to this report. In the years ahead, food safety will stand as an urgent challenge for local agencies in built environment and policy making, and one with widespread global impact at that.

Juliana Moraes Araújo is a Substitute Professor at the Department of Architecture and Urbanism at the Federal University of Viçosa, in the area of ​​Graphic Representation. Masters’ degree student at the Postgraduation Program in Architecture and Urbanism of the same University (PPG.au/UFV), in the Urban and Regional Planning line of enquiry, researching Urban Agriculture as a form of sustainable development and appropriation of space in the city (2018-2020). Graduated BA Architecture and Urbanism from the Federal University of Viçosa (2016), with an exchange period at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK, at Science Without Borders Programme (2013-2014). Interested in research and acting in the areas of Urban Planning and Collaborative Urbanism, Urban Agriculture, Collaborative Processes and City appropriation.

Renata Carvalho is an Architect and Urbanist (Universidade Federal de Vicosa, Brazil) with a Lato Sensu specialisation in Sustainability of the Built Environment (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil). Her recent research addresses walkability surrounding metro stations in Belo Horizonte (Brazil Infrastructure Institute, 2019). Broader interests include sustainable urban mobility and transport terminus design, focusing on cities for people. Former research analysed residential architecture and modes of living (CIHEL, Lisbon, 2013). She is currently a Chevening scholar for a MSc in Transport and City Planning at University College London and a partner at the Architecture and Urbanism firm Toca in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Oxford Urbanists Africa had the opportunity to interview Kenyan musician and changemaker, Juliani, the founder of Customer Bora. Customer Bora is an innovative initiative that works with the Kenya Association of Manufacturers, community and local youth groups working to rid their environment of the burden of single-use plastics and waste by creating a circular economy framework.

The interview has been edited and condensed for publication.

Lubna Elmahdy: What issues inspired you to develop Customer Bora?

Juliani: Walking around the streets of Nairobi it is inevitable to see litter scattered around. Waste management in Nairobi and in Kenya has been a challenge for the government and its citizens.

In Kenya there is no linear waste disposal process, meaning that different stakeholders fill the gaps. County governments manage some of the waste collection processes, but the majority of waste collection is done by private sector companies. However, at the end of all collection in Nairobi, whether public or private sector, about 2,500 tons of waste generated daily ends up in the Dandora dumpsite.

Dandora is not merely a rubbish dump, the area is home to about 3,000 families who source their daily bread from the 12-hectare mound of rubbish foraging for plastics and used electronics which can be sold to nearby recyclers.  Many are even forced to feed their families the leftover food thrown in the dumpsite due to financial constraints. 

LE: How does your project seek to tackle these problems? 

J: Customer Bora is all about giving power to the people in making them responsible consumers of products which are packaged in single-use plastics, metals, glass, etc. Supporting youth groups who had been working on small-scale waste collection in communities such as Dandora, Customer Bora helps facilitate the groups by having an online platform which shows them which residences would like to have their waste collected at a small fee. After they’ve collected the waste, we put them in touch with recyclers who purchase the waste. In turn, giving the youth a sustainable livelihood, which will help them support themselves and their families without having to turn to crime to fulfill their needs.

This not only cleans the environment by ensuring that this waste ends up recycled and not in landfills but also promotes the financial stability of youth in the area. 

LE: Please explain to us how the project runs from collection to transformation of waste.

J: There is a lifecycle process that we follow, outlined below:

Collection: We have provided an online platform for people to account for the collections they’ve made according to type, quantity and brand of product. We then connect them with recyclers who purchase the waste and repurpose it.

Depositing: After collection, individuals using the Customer Bora online platform head to their nearest Taka Bank to deposit the waste collected, which is manned by the youth groups. They submit all collections and then receive points on their account according to their deposit. These points are used to purchase everyday items such as flour and sugar through the platform as well.

Redeeming: Once the user is logged into the online platform, they click the redeem button which gives them options to choose which type of prize they would like to acquire. Once they have selected it, they are free to collect it from their nearest Taka Bank, likely the one where they made their deposit. 

LE: How long has the project been running for and where?

J: Initially about 3 to 4 years ago, the project performed data collection on the amounts of waste generated and brought into Dandora according to the brand of the product. Consumers of these products would SMS the brand name of the product as well as the barcode serial number, which would facilitate easy tracking for Customer Bora but was cumbersome for consumers. We presented these findings to our partners such as Nakumatt, a major supermarket in East Africa. Those companies whose packaging was most prevalent would be able to see the need for further adoption of a sustainable consumption and production model. However, this vision changed when we met with the youth groups already performing their small-scale collections on the ground and we thought of looking at a more participatory approach with the groups and residents in the community. 

Currently, we work with Kenya Association of Manufacturers to get the attention of brand names, especially when the deposit process is conducted, as they get to see how much of their packaging is collected. As of now we have 25 Taka Banks in 6 neighborhoods in Nairobi: Dandora, Dagoretti, Umoja 3, Karen, Kilimani and Kibera. We also work with 21 youth groups who come from these different neighborhoods. The process is now conducted on a user-friendly online platform.

LE: Where do you see this project in the next five years?

J: In five years, I see the Taka Banks for Customer Bora being a place where youth not only deposit their collected waste and collect prizes but have the opportunity to grow all-round. Yes, the youth are making a short-term livelihood from the platform, however I envision the space Customer Bora has provided them to be one of inspiration, self-growth, and innovation.

In the near future, we are looking to install WiFi and possibly computer labs into all of the Taka Banks to give the residents a place to learn about the world and look beyond their country. We also hope to provide youth with workshops to develop their entrepreneurial and professional skills.

As we continue this venture, we are always looking at what other value additions we can make for the youth. This is at the forefront of what we do at Customer Bora and we are always looking for ways to empower the youth to be the change they want to see.

LE: What would you like people to know about how best we can tackle the problem of urban waste in Kenya and the continent? 

J: I would like people to know that change begins with themselves and it is ALL about BEHAVIOR. When they throw that piece of rubbish out of their car window or onto the street as they are walking, they are part of the global problem which they and everyone around them are complaining about. That’s why we need to stop looking outward to government, private sector and others when it comes to having the problem of waste solved for us. If we make a few lifestyle changes to how we consume and dispose products through platforms such as Customer Bora we will be well on our way to individualizing the global vision of the achievement of the SDGs and overall well-being of our planet.

Juliani is an award-winning hip-hop artist, entrepreneur, ambassador, speaker and activist. He believes in the innate ability of every person to find their own solution. He enables that magic to happen. He has over 16 years under his belt in the Kenyan and African hip-hop industry and is considered a pioneer within the industry. He has performed in Kenya, six other African countries, Europe and the United States of America.

Lubna Elmahdy holds a bachelor’s degree Cum Laude in International Relations from the United States International University-Africa (USIU-A). During her studies, she undertook research on the role of women in post-conflict community development in urban areas with a case study of Liberia and South Sudan. She is interested in the interlinkages within the sphere of urban development, specifically in analyzing the socioeconomic factors which drive resilience and inclusivity of cities in the African context. She is currently working in communications at the Stockholm Environment Institute - Africa headquarters, where she helps transform scientific research into human-impact stories. Prior to this, she worked in UN-Habitat as a digital media strategist, managing the social media platforms of the Executive Director. She has also worked in communications and events management at Nairobi Design Week, where she brought together African designers of all disciplines focused on human-centered design.

Photo via Voa News

Sub-Saharan Africa is home to some of the most innovative waste management projects in the world. From transforming wastewater to drinking water; to making roads out of plastic and having plastic as currency, Africa has it all when it comes to seeing waste as an indispensable asset. Although many risks ought to be addressed in managing waste, several African countries have ignited the spark to change the narrative of waste from redundant to resource.

Sub-Saharan Africa is home to some of the most innovative waste management projects in the world. From transforming wastewater to drinking water; to making roads out of plastic and having plastic as currency, Africa has it all when it comes to seeing waste as an indispensable resource. For decades, Africa has also been the dumping site of electronic waste, unwanted clothing and hazardous waste for many Western countries. Through multilateral agreements such as the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), large scale exports such as second hand clothing and electronics are masked as valuable imports to the countries on the receiving end. However, these imports pose risks to the local economies, environment and health and well-being of citizens, dampening local industries and putting the environment and people’s health at risk.

Although much harm is prevalent, the governments and citizens of several African countries have ignited the spark to change the narrative of waste from redundant to resource. This article will highlight a few of the several great initiatives by citizens and state across the continent. 

Namibia: Goreangab Wastewater Treatment Plant

Namibia has one of the lowest sanitation levels in Eastern and Southern Africa, with only 33% of people having access to improved sanitation. The lack of sanitation poses serious health risks to the population where open defecation is also common. The Goreangab Wastewater Treatment Plant seeks to tackle two challenges: scarce water and poor sanitation.

Based in Namibia’s capital city, Windhoek, Goreangab Plant transforms sewage into drinkable water. A first of its kind globally, Goreangab Plant has been running for almost 50 years and has been fundamental to the area’s water supply due to the long dry seasons and desert environment. The plant has been visited by several organizations and government representatives to see how such a plant could be recreated in their countries.

The plant mimics nature by having bacteria digest the human waste. Initially built for the capacity to recycle 27,000 cubic meters of sewage a day it now does around 41,000 cubic meters a day - almost double! It provides drinking water to Windhoek’s 300,000 residents. Water is a very scarce commodity in Namibia, where drought is common. This plant exemplifies the phrase “necessity is the mother of invention,” and truly leads by example in waste innovation. 

Ghana: E-Waste Recycling

The proliferation of technology in addressing day to day challenges has led to a parallel increase in the obsolescence of old technologies. In particular,the need to communicate to a wider network across various digital platforms has led to inventions and innovations. Though this progress can be used to improve human lives in this digital era, it also exacerbates the chances of dealing with digital and electronic waste due to these machines being declared obsolete after an invention or improvement.

The Agbogbloshie dump in Ghana hosts a significant portion of these waste is often sent from the West. According to a report published by the United Nations, approximately 50 million tonnes of electronic and electrical waste (e-waste) are produced each year and that only 20% is formally recycled. The report further states that If nothing is done, the amount of waste will more than double by 2050, to 120 million tonnes annually.

In Ghana, that same e-waste represents a huge opportunity. Harvesting the resources from used electronics produces substantially less carbon-dioxide emissions than mining in the earth’s crust. This is how the majority of the population residing in proximity to the Agbogbloshie dump make a living. Using makeshift techniques to extract these metals, they put their health at risk. Various organizations have taken the initiative to try and tackle this issue that is brought about by this “leakage”. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), through the GIZ, has come up with a project that aims to improve the framework for sustainable e-waste management in Ghana. 

Kenya: Customer Bora

In recent years, Kenya has seen changes stemming from government to tackle waste such as  its plastic bag ban in 2017, following in Rwanda’s footsteps and as an example to Tanzania, which joined the movement in 2019. Though the plastic bag ban has contributed significantly to the fight against plastic pollution, Nairobi is still plagued with waste. Waste chokes the waterways, drainage pipes and most of all poses serious health threats to the people and animals living near dumpsites, both controlled or uncontrolled.

Kenyan hip-hop artist Juliani is disrupting the waste cycle with his innovative circular economy initiative, Customer Bora. Customer Bora aims to put the power to fight waste in the hands of the consumer. By linking consumers, waste collectors and recycling plants, Customer Bora acts as the middleman by providing an online platform for individuals to request for waste collection at their doorstep, which is done by environmental youth groups who are then put in touch with recyclers. Thus far they are working in several neighborhoods in Nairobi such as Dandora, Kibera, Dagoretti and Kilimani with about 25 Taka Banks (waste collection points) around the city. Stay tuned for our written interview with him to learn more!

South Africa: Plastic Roads

As the world’s population continues to increase, so does the amount of garbage that people produce. On-the-go lifestyles require easily disposable products, such as soda cans or bottles of water, but the accumulation of these products has led to increasing amounts of plastic pollution around the world. As plastic is composed of major toxic pollutants, it has the potential to cause significant harm to the environment in the form of air, water, and land pollution.

To combat this myriad of issues brought about by the use of plastics, the Kouga Municipality of South Africa has announced that it will trial South Africa’s first plastic road. According to MacRebur’s website, its products are made using materials derived from non-recyclable waste plastic that was destined for landfill or incineration.

This project, which will be supported by Port Elizabeth-based civil engineering and construction companies SP Excel and Scribante Construction, will be a huge step in South Africa’s effort to become a circular economy.

The case studies highlighted in this article show not only the great opportunity which is present when waste is managed and utilized properly, but also the risks which are prevalent if it is not disposed of and treated in the correct manner. Projects such as the Goreangab Treatment Plant are pioneering in the sector and this one in particular has been an example to those in developed countries, with people coming from all over the world to visit the plant to see how they could replicate and adapt it to their countries.

This not only shifts the narrative of Africa being a continent of dependence on foreign aid and ideas but that Africa is also the hub of innovation when it comes to fore running projects which enhance the global movement towards sustainable development and waste management.

Dereck Ngala holds an Msc in Management Information Systems from Kenya Methodist University. He is currently working as a consultant with the UN-Habitat Legal Office. He is interested in management of urban waste, and the influence of ICT on urban areas in terms of planning and design.

Lubna Elmahdy holds a bachelor’s degree Cum Laude in International Relations from the United States International University-Africa (USIU-A). During her studies, she undertook research on the role of women in post-conflict community development in urban areas with a case study of Liberia and South Sudan. She is interested in the interlinkages within the sphere of urban development, specifically in analyzing the socioeconomic factors which drive resilience and inclusivity of cities in the African context. She is currently working in communications at the Stockholm Environment Institute - Africa headquarters, where she helps transform scientific research into human-impact stories. Prior to this, she worked in UN-Habitat as a digital media strategist, managing the social media platforms of the Executive Director. She has also worked in communications and events management at Nairobi Design Week, where she brought together African designers of all disciplines focused on human-centered design. 

Dessire Velez is the co-founder of Reciclaje.pe, a Peruvian initiative focused on promoting sustainable and inclusive practices of waste management. Dessire splits her time between Germany and Perú. 

In the latest OU Glocal Ambassador feature, we met with Dessire to learn about her initiative and what has brought her to this moment.

Dessire Velez comes from the Andean region of Perú and trained as an architect at the Catholic University of Lima. Beginning in her time at university, Dessire had collided with the poor ecosystem protection and waste management present in Lima. After participating in an academic exchange at the University of Stuttgart, in Germany, she identified key differences between Peruvian and German culture in the way in which ecology is protected in cities and how, in the case of Germany, landscapes, nature and waste management and reuse are embedded within urban planning and operations. Her experience in both contexts, along with her new academic tools, led her to think that this was something that should and could change in Perú. Her senior project focused on the design of an Inclusive Recycling Center in North Lima. This would be the beginning of an idea that eventually turned into Reciclaje.pe.

THE PROBLEM

Recycling in Lima, and in most Latin American cities, depends largely on informal systems. Thousands of informal recyclers work day and night in often deplorable conditions, and the benefits of their work for cities remains unrecognized by many governments across the region. This leads to a large number of recyclers not being covered by social or medical security systems and earning very low salaries.

Despite not being a country as consumerist as most European ones, the problem of waste management in Perú is very visible since, for example, there are no landfills in the Peruvian Amazon. The difficulty of taking all the waste to Lima, the capital, for its disposal means that in most cases it is burned in the open, increasing the emissions of polluting gases and completely wasting its reuse potential. In the peripheries of Lima the problem is also exacerbated, since most of the waste from the city center is taken there and the districts have fewer resources to deal with it.

Around 2011, the Peruvian Government was already looking to formalize recyclers through the promotion of business cooperatives. In addition, the government saw waste as a raw material and as a form of financing. Even though this resulted in very positive changes for informal workers, it left many challenges to be solved before effective solutions could be implemented. One of them was to engage informal recyclers who already had “vicious work chains” that worked well, to teach them new and different ways to use waste. At this point, Dessire found great potential and that was where the idea and target audience for her initiative came from. 

Lima’s Comas district is home to 500,000 inhabitants and is located on the northern periphery of the city - the most populous and a highly informal area of the capital. Its low socioeconomic conditions, waste management issues and social and physical vulnerabilities are worsened by the immense inequality of the city. Comas presented an ideal case study for Dessire’s plans.

THE IDEA

Dessire’s objective was to build an Inclusive Recycling Center in North Lima’s Comas district. The Center would be comprised of two key functions: an open recycling center and a transfer center, to which small trucks arrive with waste that is then taken to larger treatment centers, optimizing resources and pick up times inside the city. Moreover, it would have three main approaches: Inclusion to reinforce the informal structures that already exist in the city; education for recyclers, in new and different forms of waste reuse and utilization, and support to municipalities to learn to recognize the informal dynamics of recyclers and promote partnerships for mutual benefit.

This is how Reciclaje.pe was born; a multidisciplinary team of young Peruvian and German professionals from disciplines such as Mechanical, Environmental and Industrial Engineering, Geography and Architecture working together, from Perú and Germany, to achieve the idea of efficient and equitable recycling and waste management.

Faced with a challenge of such magnitude, they began with small steps that are bearing fruit today. The first one was to obtain the sponsorship of the University of Stuttgart to carry out a simultaneous workshop in Comas and Stuttgart and through which the team hoped, in Dessire’s words, “to start the idea, to include recyclers and different municipalities in order to share their experiences, their risks, to start an exchange”. According to her, “the municipality of Comas was immediately up to it, the common objectives were recognized and the joint work began quickly”. They had the advantage of having previous studies from her master’s thesis and having an ally, Dr. Leoncio Sicha Punil, inside the municipality, who supported and advised them from the beginning. Also, because the team of professionals are connoisseurs of Peruvian reality and also trained in Germany, they are all willing to put themselves at the service of Lima.

Recently, they have partnered with Precious Plastic, a Dutch initiative defined as a “global community of hundreds of people working to solve plastic pollution” and that shares open online tools, knowledge and techniques for plastic uses in any environment and context. With Precious Plastic, and with the sponsorship of the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ for its acronym in German), Reciclaje.pe will carry out the first pilot of its project in the district of Comas, building a recycling center initially focused on plastic reuse. While implementing this first stage of the project, they will continue to work on convincing other relevant actors for the construction of the transfer station, highlighting its profitability and its openness to the public.

Dessire acknowledges that the road has not been easy. Some of her biggest challenges have been building trust within official bodies with decision-making power, as well as working in an international environment, long-distance and with volunteers. The alliances achieved with the Catholic University of Lima, the University of Stuttgart and the municipality of Comas have been fundamental in this process to build trust and obtain the necessary technical support. 

At the same time, she is aware of the benefits that come from knowing well the context because, as she explains, “if the projects depend on people who do not know the context, the risk that they are not implemented is very high. That is why we are all confident. People know that we are Peruvians doing this because we really want to, we have done it voluntarily for years… and here [in Germany] people are also confident because they know that what we are going to do makes sense in Perú.”

If you wish to know more about Reciclaje.pe or contact them, visit their Facebook page or their website.

Juan Sebastián Benítez B., Latin America Coordinator for Oxford Urbanists, holds a MSc. in Integrated Urbanism and Sustainable Design from the University of Stuttgart, Germany. He is also a Civil Engineer from Los Andes University, Colombia. Through his academic and professional career, he has channeled his efforts and capabilities towards more just and livable cities.

With the tag #GlocalAmbassadors, the Oxford Urbanists want to leverage the work of changemakers globally implementing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Find out more about how local action can lead to global results, or if you know an initiative on the same mission, tell us all about it.

The story of the New Urban Agenda and the implementation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have continuously evolved through both global and local approaches. After the mitigated balance of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), UN member countries came together in 2015 and launched new, more ambitious and easily quantifiable global goals. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) urge all government layers, but also the private sector, to collectively take on the challenges of improving standards of living, as well as mitigating climate change and protecting natural heritage. The 17 SDGs thrive on an interdisciplinary mindset where a combination of local and global action is encouraged.

In parallel, UN-Habitat has led the process to produce standards of sustainable urban development. Setting up sustainable cities as a priority at Habitat I in 1976 led to highlighting the need for stronger local governments in 1996, at Habitat II. In 2016, at Habitat III, a growing process of engagement through decentralized urban dialogues, including themes like Metropolitan Areas, Informal settlements and Sustainable Energy and Cities, brought forth the New Urban Agenda (NUA).

The Oxford Urbanists tag #GlocalAmbassadors creates a platform to highlight the effort, creativeness, resourcefulness and social value of urban initiatives that implement the global SDGs and the NUA by creating local transformation in cities and neighborhoods, or ‘glocal’ action. Whether solving the recycling issue in the informally-served rubbish collection system in Lima or creating networks to ensure livable public spaces on European cities, local action is key to attain the goals set by the 2030 Agenda.

Glocal ambassadors, through collective movements, startups, networks, NGOs or public institutions, seize local resources and employ human capital in order to actually implement the SDGs. Sampapé promotes the culture of walking via humanising urban spaces for the people of Sao Paulo, while Hortas Cariocas disseminates knowledge on growing food within the urban realm of Rio de Janeiro. In Bogota, the Combo 2600 animates weekly civic meetings that act as a knowledge-sharing platform to help solve the city’s most crucial challenges. And Delhi’s critical demand for safer urban sanitation has been courageously tackled by #SwachhDelhi4All campaign.

The human scale and down-to-earth goals guide glocal ambassadors’ initiatives, where often low-cost, bespoke urban interventions engage citizens and inspire policymakers.Tactical urbanism and regulatory frameworks intertwine as the urban communities try to become game changers, over potentially conflictual topics. With each initiative, cities come closer to the global commitments of the 2030 Agenda. Follow our regional correspondents at Oxford Urbanists’ Magazine to find out more about Glocal Ambassadors’ initiatives. If you know a Glocal Ambassador in your city or community and want to tell us about it, click here.

Planning for Delhi’s sanitation networks is a complex matter. Its systems, development, operation and maintenance involve multiple agencies at all scales. The scope of sanitation has expanded, but emphasis remains on increasing treatment capacity and extending the modern sewerage network. But where do we plan for the sanitary conditions of informal settlements, not connected by this modern network?

Sarla and Nivedita are neighbours living in a basti, which was given the tag of jhuggi jhopri (JJ) cluster[1] by the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi[2] in 2014-15. This settlement of urban poor is inhabited by a tight-knit community of migrant workers who came from the south Indian city of Madras, now known as Chennai. On the eve of New Year 2019, I came across these two fine ladies coming to the basti with bottles hidden in their shawls, having crossed the Barapullah drain, in which flows human waste, rendering it a sewage canal; and the railway lines of Indian Railways, connecting Delhi to its neighbouring states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

I ask Sarla where she has come from, to which Nivedita responds: “You are from the government, right? You should leave now. This is our community; we will do as we see fit”.

Having gone through similar episodes of initial hostility conducting research on informal settlements throughout the past four years in other parts of Delhi, I smiled back at Sarla and Nivedita and said, “No, Nivedita, I am not from the government. I am here as a human trying to take one of your biggest issues to those who would listen to me in the government. I can see you are coming from the tracks, and with that bottle hidden beneath your shawl, I am certain it was to address your nature’s call”.

Sarla and Nivedita respond with, “If you know it, why are you asking these silly questions?”.

Mahak: “I am asking you to tell your toilet story, Sarla and Nivedita. Will you?”

Sarla: “My madam tells me that with her tax my toilet is being constructed by the government, so I should stop giving her excuses of health issues and come to work every day. But, do you see one toilet in the entire basti?”

Nivedita: “Our local politician told us a community toilet has been constructed near the basti and we should use it, or else we can be put behind bars, or worse pay a fine as high as our two months income. They should live with us for an hour and see if they can walk 1 kilometre every time, they have to use the facility, that too a facility which is stinking and without water most of the time. How can we send our daughters and elders to these facilities which are surrounded by rascals who are waiting to harass any chance they get?”

Sarla: “I lost my girl to one of these rascals, my boy has lost one of his arms while crossing this railway line, but what other option do we have. We cannot do it in our homes, we do not have space in our basti to build a unit ourselves. The only option we have is to travel in pairs across the railway line and drain, find spaces away from public eye, and do our business. We do not like to live like this either, but do you see any other option?”

[1] Settlements of urban poor identified by the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB), Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) as “an encroachment on public or private lands. They are therefore seen as illegal” (DUSIB, 2014).

[2] Delhi is neither a city nor a state. It has a special status of being a union territory of India as well as the national capital. Delhi is officially known as National Capital Territory of Delhi, and its government is known as Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD). For the strategic status of Delhi, it’s functioning and jurisdiction lies with the Centre, GNCTD or city/state, as well as local governments.

This is ONE ‘toilet story’ from the capital of India, officially known as the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi. There are thousands of other Sarlas and Niveditas waiting to live and relieve without a shred of fear. Is open defecation a way of living? No. Is it a last resort? Yes!

As an urbanist, it is overwhelming to talk about a matter as trivial as a toilet. It is like an urbanist working to provide and plan for clean water supply, and talk of a tap. As planners, when it comes to urban waste management, especially human waste, we focus on infrastructure, infrastructure and more infrastructure; be it sewerage networks, allocation of land for sewage treatment plants, or augmenting treatment capacity with rise of forthcoming population, their water demand and the waste thus generated. But, in this entire equation of land allocation and infrastructural augmentation, where do we plan for the sanitary state of a city’s population which is not connected by this modern network - and which often includes select urban villages and the urban poor?

Providing water is easy: provide a tubewell, or a standpost, or a few connections, and the community will be happy; but what about the human waste? This is where the trivial matter of the toilet comes into the picture of urban waste management.

On August 15, 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a pan-India mission- Clean India Mission (famously known as Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan, in Hindi), envisaging an India free of open defecation by October 2, 2019; a date marking the 150th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, who believed that ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’.

This launch was no less than a game changer in the sanitation history of India. First, sanitation became a national political priority overnight. Second, for the first time, urban India had a public policy for sanitation where sanitation was not a part of a larger scheme on water supply or housing or poverty reduction. Third, every citizen of India now had something to speak on matters of shit. The latter is particularly remarkable in Indian context for the country has a deep-rooted colonial and social cultural legacy of sanitation, especially urban sanitation, where social, physical segregation has a sanitary dimension.  A section of society, is held ‘responsible’ for waste management. Speaking of anything to do with sanitation by a general citizen who is not ‘responsible’ for waste management is taboo.

With this Mission, every kid, man, and woman does not shy away from talking matters of shit in a general conversation about public health and cleanliness. Some of the biggest celebrities have been roped in by the Government of India as ambassadors of the Mission, where these ambassadors talk about sanitation matters over various media platforms.  

The Mission document by the Modi Government details frameworks of assessment, provision, and monitoring. Funds have been transferred from the Centre to states and union territories of India to support states in implementing the Mission and realising the vision of an open-defecation-free India by 2019. Over 9 crore (~90 million) household and public toilets have been constructed in the past five years across India, with a few dozen in Delhi. However, the broader vision remains a dream.

Planning for Delhi’s sanitation networks is a complex matter. The urban sanitation systems for the NCT of Delhi, and its planning, development, operation and maintenance, involve multiple agencies at all scales of governance: Centre, state, city, district and local; for it is a union territory and the national capital. At the Centre, the Delhi Development Authority outlines the vision and provisions within the statutory plan documents, also known as a Master Plan. Since 1957, the Authority has formulated three Master Plans for Delhi: the Master Plan of Delhi, 1962- 1982, succeeded by the Plan for 1982-2001, which is superseded by the current Plan of 2001-21. With each plan the scope of sanitation has expanded but the emphasis remains on augmentation of treatment capacity through population-based wastewater calculations, land budgeting, and an extension of the modern sewerage network (DDA, 1982, 1990, 2007).

At city level, the urban sanitation systems’ administration is led by two agencies: the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), and the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB). The former agency is the sole provider of water for the city and is also discharged with the responsibility of laying down a sewage network and augmenting its capacity periodically. However, it is not mandated to provide the human right to all living in the city. It thus conveniently limits its service delivery to planned developments or anyone who has a tenure, with minor interventions for unplanned developments of slums and unauthorized colonies where politics and economic forces come into play. For any planned area, all divisions of GNCTD will provide services, after due process of law and administration. But for unplanned, informal areas in the city, access is determined by local political leaders and their state of community works, few months prior to elections every five years. In the end, you have a few informal, unplanned areas where access is equivalent to those of planned areas, and several others where services are absent.

The Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board, however, focuses on the provision of community toilets in identified unplanned settlements within the city, identified as jhuggi jhompri (JJ) clusters.

At the local level, the city’s urban sanitation system is governed by five local bodies – the North, South and East Delhi Municipal Corporations, the New Delhi Municipal Council and Cantonment Board. Each of these local bodies manage the sanitary state within their jurisdiction areas by daily street sweeping, solid waste management, and constructing urinals in public spaces. These actions often ignore the needs of women in design, planning or management.

Urban sanitation is a complex responsibility tasked to multiple agencies at three levels of administration for the National Capital Territory of Delhi. For reasons of restrictive policy emphasis and incoherence in coordination and functioning of these systems, sanitation deprivation, and consequently open defecation, persists.

With 48% of households defecating in the open, many of them urban poor, sanitation deprivation and open defecation continue to be intertwined with poverty in Delhi. The national capital of the welfare state has undertaken several initiatives- such as Urban Basic Services Programme in 1986, slum improvement and upgradation schemes post-1956, minimum services programme of 1974-78, basic services to urban poor scheme post 2005, and several other city and national level schemes where sanitation was a part of a larger housing, poverty alleviation schemes; to provide basic minimum facilities of sanitation and water supply to these deprived pockets, but the envisaged benefits are yet to trickle down.

Toilet stories from these deprived pockets may differ, but the demand of the deprived remains the same: “Build us toilets we can use!”

In realising the dream of an open-defecation-free India, including Delhi, some of the answers, illuminated with the help of urban narratives with the most affected populations, may include the following:

1. Provision of adequate number of facilities for the targeted population to address issues of overcrowding and user by day, defecator by night;

2. Ensuring each outlet of waste is connected to a form of collection, treatment facility- on-site, off-site;

3.  Ensuring adequate, constant supply of water, electricity;

4. Ensuring access to facilities within 500 metres distance to its users;

5. Maintenance on a daily basis;

6. Community policing for safety and security (being implemented by United Nations Office for Project Services or UNOPS in a few refugee camps across the world);

7. Written law and/or policy provision guaranteeing that access to usable facility is not affected by legal status of the deprived.

In the end, it is certain that we cannot expect open defecation and associated issues - of environmental contamination, health and education implications, loss of productivity – to be eliminated by the mere provision of a toilet facility.

As urbanists, do we be bystanders and watch as honest tax-payers’ money goes down a drain, for a pan-India Mission which is not eradicating open defecation as envisaged? Do we settle for simple policy critiques? Or, do we try to chalk out ways forward to truly and completely eradicate open defecation from the capital of India?

The choice is ours!  

REFERENCES

[1]    Delhi Development Authority, 1982. Master Plan of Delhi-1962, New Delhi: Akalank Publications.

[2]    Delhi Development Authority, 1990. Master Plan of Delhi-2001, New Delhi: Delhi Development Authority.

[3]    Delhi Development Authority, 2010. Master Plan of Delhi-2021, New Delhi: Delhi Development Authority.

Mahak Agrawal is an urban planner, researcher from India. Presently working on the issue of sanitation deprivation and climate crisis response across coastal districts of India and urban India in the north, she has served as an expert reviewer to the Second Order Draft of the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land.

She is also a Local Pathways Fellow to the United Nations Sustainable Development Solution Network (UN-SDSN). With her project: A Dream of Open Defecation free India? Decolonise and Innovate urban sanitation; Mahak is leading an online petition with the support of Change.org foundation, sholding Government of Delhi accountable for Human Rights to sanitation to urban poor with key emphasis on females, children and differently abled, with the campaign’s demand to audit these facilities, for their usability.

In different capacities, she has worked with non-profit organisations, development banks, universities and research institutes, as well as technical divisions of government-at the Centre and city level in India. Next to her contribution to the United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) initiative, Mahak explores innovative, enduring research-guided solutions for pressing urban and regional environmental problems. She is specifically interested in climate change and urban studies investigating multi-track approach and inequalities of adaptations and transformations, development and geography, associated global challenges and human geography.

An advocate of open data for effective urban management, monitoring and response, she often provides thought leadership to the Young Academic Network of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) and the South Asia Centre at London School of Economics. In 2017, she was awarded the Prof. V.N. Prasad Best Thesis Award for best thesis in Master of Planning in India.

As cities continue to grow and expand across LatAm, it is evident that urban solid waste management efforts fall short. How can Latin American cities decouple their economic growth from the increase of their solid waste generation rates to ramp up their sustainable development efforts? Building up on the region’s advantages and changing the perspective on the way these cities economies work is a clear way of redefining the region’s growth

One of the least discussed issues associated with the growth and expansion of urbanization in Latin America is the increase of its cities’ solid waste generation rates. As cities continue to grow and expand across the region, it is evident that urban solid waste management efforts fall short. National and local authorities are often overwhelmed by the challenge of adequately managing the amount of waste generated in cities, with approximately 27% of waste ending up in uncontrolled open dumps and water bodies. Even though reportedly more than two thirds of waste is disposed of in landfills, environmental controls of these facilities are weak or non-existent. Furthermore, landfills are situated close to city centers and within metropolitan areas, sacrificing significant amounts of land area and posing major environmental risks and impacts to the urban environment.

As stated by the SDGs, waste management is directly linked to improving urban health and living conditions, environmental protection and inclusive local economic development. Therefore, failing to recognize the importance of adequately managing solid waste could significantly hamper the region’s efforts to grow sustainably.

It is true that Latin American cities’ general governance challenges affect their capacity to manage solid waste, but, as income levels and lifestyle influence the amounts of waste generation and the type of waste that is generated, it is more complex for high-income cities than it is for middle and low-income ones to change their production and consumption patterns to reduce waste generation. The key question then is: How can Latin American cities decouple their economic growth from the increase of their solid waste generation rates to ramp up their sustainable development efforts?

Becoming circular 

Circular economy aims at eliminating waste by enabling processes where waste serves as resources. It looks beyond the linear take-make-dispose production and consumption processes into “closed loop” restorative and regenerative systems, in which secondary raw materials become the main inputs, following either technical or biological life cycles. A circular model increases resilience and creates value replacing the “end of life” concept with restoration of components and products designed for disassembly and reuse, and the return of biological nutrients to the biosphere.

The opportunities for Latin American cities in this field become clear in the light of two very important facts. First, unlike the case of developed countries, in which most of the waste generated is inorganic - which carries greater treatment and final disposing challenges - 52% of the region’s municipal solid waste is classified as food and green waste, liable to be treated through composting and anaerobic digestion processes as part of biological waste-to-energy cycles. Second, this region’s average collection rate is 89.9%, higher than the worldwide average of 73.6%, which shows a certain level of the prioritization of this service.  If improved by selective collection strategies, it could facilitate the recovery and restoration of non-biological waste. These characteristics are especially relevant to understand the relative advantages this region’s cities have and how they can be used to foster the implementation of alternative solutions based on circular economy to reduce and adequately manage their solid waste.

So far, the solid waste managerial efforts of Latin America’s cities -where they do exist- have focused on “end of pipe” measures and the final disposition of waste. However, the greater challenge to achieve sustainable economic growth, is re-directing public policy and regulation efforts at the source of waste.  Enabling the systems through which materials and products can be designed and produced to retain their value at the end of their lifecycle can be an important catalizer of new business models that contribute to reduce waste generation rates. Thus, the gradual implementation of circular economy practices is a tangible opportunity to build upon, as demonstrated by different emerging examples associated with circularity in Latin America’s countries.

Colombia’s Green Network Program, -implemented in 2014- aims at operating selective collection and environmental management of home appliances at the end of their lifecycle, focusing mainly in urban areas, to recover and reuse some materials and safely dispose of their toxic content. Through this program, the private manufacturing companies have an active role on the disposal of the goods they produce and the recovery of secondary raw materials to be used in other production processes, thus responding to a circular business model. Furthermore, the Colombian government is also playing an important role in gradually shifting from a linear to a circular production process, with the implementation as of February of this year, of the National Policy on Electric and Electronic Appliances Waste, expanding the governance framework for post-consumption strategies to reduce the rates and negative impacts of technological waste.

But the impact of solid waste generation is not limited to the urban environment. When cities fail to adequately manage their urban waste it usually ends up in water streams and rivers, thus polluting water bodies in rural areas. Therefore, the need to implement the circular model as part of an integrated urban solid waste treatment strategy extends beyond cities. In Guatemala, the eco-bricks school building projects are an example of how communities in rural areas, with support from NGOs and local governments, have started to turn waste into resources, contributing to reduce the solid waste generated in urban areas. In these projects, packing plastic within Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) bottles forms the eco-bricks, as a route for recovering plastic solid waste to be used for construction purposes, granted that certain conditions are complied with throughout the manufacturing process.

Some studies show that eco-bricks are a sustainable alternative material for construction with important social, environmental and economic benefits. Moreover, these projects have had a greater global impact through the creation of knowledge networks that enable the identification of secondary raw materials through cross-sectorial exchanges according to a vision of circular economy.

Furthermore, Organic Waste to Energy (OWtE) technologies have been developed and implemented in the region and have demonstrated social and economic benefits through waste management and energy systems improvement. In Central America, México and Brazil sugar cane bagasse and straw are treated through combustion processes playing an important role for the co-generation of electricity, to give just a few examples.

The use of secondary raw materials through up-cycling and open-loop recycling and the use of OWtE technologies are not yet enough to speak about a closed loop economy in Latin America. However, scaling up these practices, increasing public awareness and creating a relevant policy and regulatory framework could become important enablers to reduce urban solid waste in Latin America’s cities. Building up on the region’s advantages – high percentage of biological waste and high collection rates- and changing the perspective on the way these cities economies work by facilitating and promoting the creation of circular economic systems, is a clear way of redefining the region’s growth, following the path towards a more sustainable development.

For more information about eco-bricks go to:

http://puravidaatitlan.org/en_family.html

https://www.ecobricks.org/download/

Carol Guerra holds a specialization in Managing and Financing Urban Infrastructure from the Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. She also holds a bachelor’s degree Cum Laude in law and social sciences from Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala. She has ten years of experience in researching legal and institutional frameworks to understand their impact on urban development. Working as a consultant for multilateral organizations, national and local governments, she has contributed in the formulation of policies, laws and regulations for integral urban development and affordable housing in Guatemala and The Caribbean. She believes in the multidisciplinary approach to urban planning as a means to fully seize its opportunities for economic development and achieve urban inclusivity

Latin American rivers are some of the most polluted in the world. High levels of urbanization are both the cause and recipients of the consequences of the lack of urban waste management.

Polluted rivers have become a major issue all over the world. Research from Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) states that 95% of the plastic pollution in oceans around the world comes from 10 rivers- shown in Figure 1. However, no Latin American river was included in the UFZ study, which led me to wonder what the situation of the region in terms of rivers’ pollution actually is. The investigation from UFZ highlighted the population scale related to the waste scale, the quality of waste management in cities, and the acknowledgement of waste flows and water flows as crucial points in understanding rivers’ pollution.

Based on the first criteria, I chose 3 of the most populated cities in Latin America to explore what their situation is in terms of waste management and the role that their rivers play in such a process. Despite the different geographical settings in which Mexico City, Bogotá, and Buenos Aires are located, I use them as examples of similar ways in which Latin American cities have been dealing with their waste. The roots of these management strategies must be tracked to different periods and decisions made throughout the history of each city.

Water in Latin America 

Despite being a region with abundant water resources, Latin America is also known as a thirsty region due to the low access to drinking water for millions of people. Additionally, Latin American rivers are some of the most polluted in the world. High levels of urbanization are both the cause and recipients of the consequences of the lack of urban waste management. The following sections illustrate key case studies for the region:

Mexico City, Mexico

In Mexico City, we must consider not just the visual differences seen through the city’s expansion (seen in Figures 2 and 3) but also the decisions made to produce such changes. The Spanish colonial period led to transformations such as draining the main lake as well as the existing network of canals in order to establish a new city. At the end of the 1950s, due to flooding issues and the tradition of using urban rivers as toilets, places to dump waste, and washing places, the city authorities decided to tube most urban rivers through big concrete pipes, in order to isolate and conduct rain and wastewater outside the urban area. Today, Mexico City has flooding and hygiene under control but faces water scarcity as a result of its growing population and the way water bodies are managed in the city.

For instance, only 20% of the Magdalena River, one of the city’s water sources, is used for water supply. The rest is used for sewage or as a rubbish dump. Another example is the Piedad River, a piped river for which designers, urbanists, and environmentalists have proposed interventions to open the pipe and integrate the river to the urban ecosystem and landscape; however, its 15km are currently used as sewage. There are around 45 piped rivers under the city, presumably in similar conditions, following the principle of “let waste go with the river”.

Bogota, Colombia

The history of the Bogotá River can be described as a history of pollution. This river has had a key role in the clearance of urban waste since colonial times. Subsequently, during the modernization of Bogotá, and as the Colombian capital’s population increased, so did water demand and urban waste. The provision of water to a higher amount of people reduced its availability for waste removal which means waste remained in the city. This situation led to public health issues, between 1910-1920, such as a significant rise in death rates caused by typhoid fever and dysentery. 

Around 1970, with a much higher population and, as a result, waste generation, pollution of the Bogotá River became a political and public issue. In the 1990s city authorities outlined a strategy for river sanitation, focusing on the use of technology to treat the pollution. Now, the river’s pollution transcends its own scale. This still-polluted water has been used for decades to irrigate farming as well as for livestock located in Bogotá’s outskirts along the river, which might result in transferring toxic content to the food sources of inhabitants. Currently there are plans, that will be funded by the World Bank, to expand one of the main wastewater treatment plants to improve the current situation.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Buenos Aires, and in particular the Río de la Plata, is an example of transboundary pollution in waterways, similar to the situation experienced along the Rhine River in the 1980s. Even though Rio de la Plata’s high level of pollution is considered a biological danger in Argentina, a wider geographical scale must be analyzed to be more accurate. As seen in Figure 5, Rio de la Plata’s main effluents correspond to rivers which officially belong to neighbor countries in the north of Argentina such as the Paraguay River, the Paraná River (Brazil) and the Uruguay River. Agrochemical and urban waste are common elements found in these waters, which are produced by the settlements along their ways before gathering at Rio de la Plata basin. 

Additionally, the way Buenos Aires uses the Riachuelo River on a city scale as a waste dump leads it to be thought of as one of the most polluted waterways in Latin America, which also at its final stage pours its water into Rio de la Plata, bringing more pollution into an already polluted water body. This situation is considered as Argentina’s never ending environmental disaster.

Puzzle or chess?

Although cities are seen as places in which virtually nature stops, these examples show how high dependency of urban areas for water is not just for drinking purposes, but also to deal with urban waste. Clear patterns of colonial and modernist views of water have led these cities to their current outcomes, in which rivers are seen only as pieces of a big puzzle with determined functions and impact areas. Urban rivers should instead be approached as a sort of chess game, as a strategic matter in which the role, movement, and influence of every piece must be understood, so that cities can be planned accordingly. 

The examples of Mexico City, Bogotá, and Buenos Aires lend the image of rivers and urban planners playing different games in terms of urban waste. Keeping the “let waste go with the river” model for longer is unsustainable and shows the extent to which water bodies are understood as isolated pieces in cities. The Latin American situation for plastic pollution in rivers might be just better than those rivers drawn on figure 1, but if further pollutants are considered, then this analysis concludes that the thirsty region still does not know how to play with its water sources.

Thanks to Ailed Perez in Mexico and Myriam Heredia in Argentina for their tremendous support for writing this article.

Mauricio Estrada is a Colombian architect that holds a M.Sc. in Integrated Urbanism and Sustainable Design from the University of Stuttgart in Germany. Currently he works for the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography in Leipzig, Germany, where he focuses his research in analysing nature-based solutions and their implications for urban development and environmental justice across different cities.

This August, Oxford Urbanists (OU) enters the global debate on waste management in urban centers, highlighting its challenges, controversies and opportunities for growth in developing countries.

Urban waste management is a major topic for the sustainable development of cities, especially in developing countries. According to a recent report by UN Environment, it’s estimated that every Latin American citizen living in cities produces one kilogram of waste per day, representing approximately 10% of the world’s waste. As cities evolve to accompany their population growth and economic development, waste management is becoming a key point of discussion for ensuring their sustainable development.

Today, 145 thousand tons of residue that are produced daily in Latin American and  Caribbean cities are discarded in inappropriate places. This number corresponds to one-fourth of all the region’s waste, approximately. In spite of all existing efforts - strategies for reducing and separating waste, biogas implementation alternatives, combustion technologies with strict emissions as an alternative to open incineration, among others -  to manage this time-sensitive problem, there is still a lot of adjusting to be done. Most government initiatives tend to deal with the problem in a palliative manner, as 45% of all the collected waste still doesn’t receive adequate treatment and ends up in landfills.  

In Sub-Saharan Africa, about 62 million tons of waste is produced annually. Of this vast amount, only 44 percent is collected, mostly in cities with largely neglected rural areas, with the rest being burned and disposed of illegally in unauthorized dumpsites. Even though Sub-Saharan Africa currently produces the least amount of waste as a region, 5% of the global total, it is among the fastest urbanizing regions in the world with a rapidly growing population. With this in mind, the rates of waste generation are expected to skyrocket. 

In line with several continental and regional development agendas, such as the African Union’s Agenda 2063, among the priorities of these development agendas is waste management and shifting the mindset from seeing waste as useless to seeing it as a resource. Several innovations in urban waste management can be sourced from Africa, including the Goreangab wastewater treatment plant, which transforms sewage into potable water. 

This month, the OU team aims at tackling this important issue and its impact on the development of our cities. Among other issues, we will raise attention about the negative influence of inadequate waste management in the quality of urban rivers. We will also feature initiatives that are currently taking place in different regions to improve our current waste management methods, highlighting how sustainable waste management activities can serve as a catalyst for local economic development. We will approach recycling initiatives, waste-to-energy plant alternatives, and the opportunities for growth related to extended producer responsibility. Stay tuned!

Guilherme Scardini is an architect and urbanist (Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Brazil) and Masters student in Landscape Architecture (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), currently working in the Urban Ecology Department of the Secretary of Environment, Water Resources and Sustainability in the City Hall of Niterói, Brazil . Former research has focused on analysing urban mobility using transportation modals, focusing on new guidelines for a new development plan, and also on the therapeutical impact of gardens focused on healing stress and mental fatigue. Prior to Oxford Urbanists, Guilherme was a Science Without Borders scholar, having attended a year at Szent István University (Budapest, Hungary - 2015/2016), under the Bachelors Course of Landscape Architecture. Also collaborated with the internal development sectors of the Universidade Federal de Viçosa, as an intern for the Landscape Design sector, and the Internal Infrastructure sector (respectively on 2015 and 2017).

Lubna Elmahdy holds a bachelor’s degree Cum Laude in International Relations from the United States International University-Africa (USIU-A). During her studies, she undertook research on the role of women in post-conflict community development in urban areas with a case study of Liberia and South Sudan. She is interested in the interlinkages within the sphere of urban development, specifically in analyzing the socioeconomic factors which drive resilience and inclusivity of cities in the African context. She is currently working in communications at the Stockholm Environment Institute - Africa headquarters, where she helps transform scientific research into human-impact stories. Prior to this, she worked in UN-Habitat as a digital media strategist, managing the social media platforms of the Executive Director. She has also worked in communications and events management at Nairobi Design Week, where she brought together African designers of all disciplines focused on human-centered design. 

Mr. Manuel Olivera, current C40’s Regional Director for Latin America sat down with Andrés Melendro Blanco, Latin America Coordinator for the Oxford Urbanists, to discuss C40’s approach and his views on the process towards electrification of transport systems in Latin America. Among others, he emphasizes that if there is not enough demand from cities, the supply of electric articulated buses will remain scarce, therefore the need for cities to take the leadership and move forward.

Mr. Manuel Olivera served as Bogotá’s Secretary of the Environment and as a consultant for several international organizations. He is currently C40’s Regional Director for Latin America.

AMB: You recently mentioned that “TransMilenio [Bogotá’s BRT system] got the appropriate financial model to make the process feasible” talking about the recent tender to acquire and operate 590 e-buses. Why was this financial model not applied to the BRT tender last year? 

MO: The reason given by Bogotá’s City Hall for not requiring electric vehicles in last year’s tender to renew its BRT fleet is that only one company in the world produces e-buses of the size required by TransMilenio, that is, 18-meter-long articulated buses and 27 meter-long biarticulated ones. However, it is not true that there is only one supplier in the market. In fact, two companies were ready to participate in the tender, but one couldn’t meet the financial requirements, which were quite high.

It is, therefore, a political decision to avoid legal risks, since in Colombia the law requires that there must be at least two participants for a tender to be lawful. There are no technical nor financial barriers that prevent the electrification of the system. In fact, in the case of natural gas, the one provider issue did hold true, yet that argument was not used.

There are few BRT systems utilizing biarticulated e-buses the size of TransMilenio’s. If there is no demand from existing BRT systems, the supply of electric articulated buses will remain scarce. Some city must take the leadership and move forward.

AMB: ¿What are the most adequate financial mechanisms to make e-buses affordable for Latin American cities? 

MO: A thorough financial analysis shows that electrifying public transit is cost-efficient in comparison with other technologies. It is a mistake to make a decision based on the CAPEX (capital expenditure), without taking the OPEX (operating expenses) into account. It is necessary to conduct an analysis of the full cost of ownership, quantifying also human health and environmental externalities.

For the last 8 years, we have consistently reached the conclusion with the entities we work with that an e-bus is less expensive than a diesel-powered one in present value. The difference ranges from 7 to 30%, without taking environmental costs into account. There is no need for a specific mechanism to make e-buses affordable. They already are, there is just a need to do proper calculations.

The next question is how to finance electrification, acknowledging the different cash flow of each city. Depending on these flows, it might take 5, 10 or 15 years to pay for it. Of course, there will be some financial costs linked, but these are negotiable. From this starting point, local governments must study who offers the best conditions and how to minimize their own risk profile. A well-structured project can be suitable for the issuance of a green bond. Depending on the project, these bonds can be a more affordable financing source than commercial or development loans.

AMB: Most e-bus manufacturers are Chinese firms. As Latin American cities start operating the largest e-bus fleets in the world outside of China, is there room for the region to become a manufacturing powerhouse?

MO: The current production of buses in the region is concentrated in Brazil, where Volvo, Scania, Mercedes, among others - which do not yet produce e-buses -, and BYD - whose production is 100% electric - are based. This is because Brazil has the largest domestic market and acts as a supplier for the rest of Latin America. Moreover, in order to achieve tax deductions, 35% of the parts of the bus must be produced in Brazil. Likewise, access to local sources of financing requires that 60% of the vehicle must be of national production. Mexico is also moving towards e-bus manufacturing. Overall, the future of this industry depends on the evolution of demand in the region.

AMB: What barriers to transport electrification has C40 helped Latin American Cities overcome?

MO: C40’s role is building trust among cities. We highlight that technology exists, is viable and we invite cities to buy solutions, not problems. For instance, why would they purchase batteries? For that, we focus on educating the different stakeholders: transit operators, power-generating companies and local governments. Once trust and willingness exist, C40 facilitates the contact with potential funders. C40’s main success in the region is the transition towards zero emission fleets, as seen in Santiago, Medellín and hopefully Bogotá soon with the current tender. We hope to see projects soon in Quito, Sao Paulo and Rio as well.

This support is given through workshops with decision-makers from different layers of governments. My role in particular is coordinating knowledge exchange, apply it to local politics and contribute to translate it into policies and, in turn, into projects with funding, sometimes through technical cooperation.

AMB: What is C40’s strategy to strengthen it presence in the region? Are there expansion plans, focus or methodology shifts in sight?

MO: We are currently studying several strategies to formalize C40’s presence in the region. These plans depend on two factors: resource availability and cities’ interest. We are a non-profit and we rely on donations. There is great interest in our portfolio. Our goal is to help cities within our network draft and implement their climate action plans, in order to become carbon neutral by 2050.

We run a project called Cities Finance Facility, financed mainly by the British and German governments, through which we open a call for proposals for local projects and bring them to financial closure. The CFF has been a means for us to work with cities of different sizes, beyond the region’s main metropolis. 

Andrés Melendro Blanco previously worked as an editor for The Business Year, an international media group, as a consultant for UN-Habitat and as an urban development analyst at ProBogotá, a think-tank dedicated to fostering Bogotá’s sustainability. He holds a bachelor’s degree cum laude in Political Science and a master’s degree in Urban Policy, both from Sciences Po Paris.

A critical perspective on the introduction of electric buses in Santiago de Chile’s public transport network. A reflection on the need for connecting these policies with long-term sustainability strategies and intersectoral governance arrangements in order to endure on effective sustainable policies. Embedding these efforts in the current power devolution is an opportunity to shape new institutional arrangements which could unlock the effectiveness of electric buses in full. 

Transport policies are a crucial element in accomplishing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the year 2030. However, according to the first global mobility report [1], the world is not on track to achieve the mobility-related SDGs  since the high demand for mobilizing goods and people continues to increase at high costs for future generations. Therefore, it is urgent to generate strategies to reverse these trends since the costs to society in terms of congestion, accidents, inefficiencies and pollution are very high.

Accordingly, something that has characterized the management of Chilean President Sebastián Piñera has been the introduction of new fleets of electric buses in the capital city of Santiago. Whether as part of the ex-Transantiago or RED [2] - which is the system that would supposedly replace it - there are already more than 200 buses currently in operation and a new fleet of 180 buses has just been announced for September 2019. Gloria Hutt, the current Minister of Transport and Telecommunications, has expressed the intention that by 2022 30% of the fleet will be fully electric. Meeting this goal would reduce the GHG emissions (greenhouse gases) from the buses by 35%.     

In Chile, according to data from the Chilean Ministry of Energy [3], about one-third of energy consumption can be attributed to the transport sector, and 98% of this consumption comes from oil derivatives. At the same time, this sector is responsible for more than 22% of total GHG emissions in the country, which is why clean energy integration into the transportation sector is critical. These policies need to go beyond public transport since the vast majority of these emissions come from the use of individual vehicles. Therefore, any strategy that doesn’t take care of individual vehicles it’s unlikely to be effective.

The introduction of electric buses is a valuable effort in moving from a public transport model based on fossil fuels to other less-polluting modes of transport. Also, this initiative is in line both with the importance of solving an internal environmental pollution problem in the city of Santiago, as well as with the urgency of taking concrete actions to mitigate global warming. Unfortunately, we believe that in the case of electric buses, the contribution to emissions reductions is very marginal and, therefore, loses value if it does not go hand in hand with measures aimed at reducing the use of private vehicles.

Furthermore, we see a lack of specific strategy on how to promote sustainable mobility. Especially important is the interaction between different modes of transport and stakeholders, for which resources, infrastructure and an integrated urban governance framework are required. The latter seems to be an abstract element but is a crucial to unlock much of the mobility problems in Santiago. Moreover, it is imperative to produce new institutional arrangements that promote and enhance intersectoral coordination, collaboration and experimentation for decision-making setting a common ground to act upon sustainable mobility in a city level.

Therefore, we cannot evaluate a public policy that seeks to have an environmental impact only through valuation in public opinion surveys or media coverage. Although these elements are relevant, if we want to take sustainable mobility seriously, we need to take actions that go in line with long-term planning strategies. For this, resources must be available, and progress must be made towards institutional frameworks that allow these initiatives to be strengthened as part of a more significant effort. 

In that sense, the first ever city-level authority election (regional governor) to happen in Chile in the 2020, and the parallel power devolution discussion, represent an enormous window of opportunity to generate an institutional framework to achieve better coordination and intersectoral decision-making for a greener and sustainable mobility. Nevertheless, we must consider the elements above exposed and approach integrated urban planning and sustainable mobility as one thing. It is essential to integrate decisions about public transport infrastructure, operations and to generate incentives to use alternatives to individual vehicles (such as special tariffs zones) all at the same time. These are the kinds of considerations necessary to generate a new common ground for decision-making. 

We applaud efforts in introducing more electric buses, but only if linked to complimentary policies to reduce carbon emissions. Otherwise, these policies will be no more than cosmetic changes, which could help to obtain short-term political capital, but which will not alone realize more sustainable cities.

[1]Global Mobility Report, 2017.

[2]Name of the previous and new public transport system of Santiago which include public buses, metro and the city-rail. 

[3] Estrategia de electromovilidad, documento en consulta, Ministerio de Energía Chile. http://www.minenergia.cl/archivos_bajar/ucom/consulta/Estrategia_Electromovilidad_en%20Chile.p

Ignacio Pérez is a DPhil (PhD) Candidate at the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford. ignacio.perez@ouce.ox.ac.uk/ @JIPerezK

Ariel López is a PhD Candidate at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the Universidad de Chile. 

Even though micromobility is a great innovation that can help cities fill the last mile gap, it can lead to a tragedy of the commons scenario. We take a look not only at some successful approaches to regulating this offer, but also at how cities can capitalize on the data created by micromobility operators to better plan their overall mobility.

Lessons learned from the Chinese “tragedy”

Collective action problems emerge when individuals or groups take rational decisions based on their own interest, while producing negative consequences for everyone. Free-floating shared-bicycle and scooter systems - together known as micromobility - are a recent example of this old concept. Unlike docked bicycles schemes, free-floating systems do not have dedicated parking stations.

The Chinese case is arguably the most interesting one to understand this collective action problem and the reasons why micromobolity is more about technology and investment funds than actually about mobility. As a private and equity-driven business, cities cannot control micromobility’s volatility. Shifts in supply respond more to funding rounds than to actual transport demand.

Free-floating bike-sharing schemes have displayed neck-breaking growth rates in the past years. According to Arthur D. Little, a research firm, in 2017, there were more than 20 million shared bikes in China. Free-floating companies together had raised over 20 billion RMB, but many of them are on the brink of bankruptcy few years later. The Chinese case set a high-motion precedent that is worth analyzing from any other region in the world.

A common pool of bicycles and scooters 

The operation of the micromobility industry reflects a two-tiered collective action problem, with nuances from one city to the other, but overall present in all the cities where it has been introduced. On one side, fierce competition based on quantity as the differentiator between firms led to oversupply. By encroaching large portions of the public space, these systems become a mobility problem, namely for pedestrians, as well as a sustainability one, given the challenge of dealing with the waste created by thousands of abandoned or damaged bikes. Tech companies use public spaces (streets, sidewalks, parks, plazas, etc.) as a common pool resource. They use this resource according to their own interest, maximizing their benefits through increased market share. They overuse the resource, because they are able to obtain the benefit of doing so, while incurring no direct cost. Firms are aware of this issue, but they fail to cooperate because they face a classic prisoner’s dilemma. This first tier constitutes an example of the tragedy of the commons, just like the case of climate change, with countries that do not limit their GHG emissions in anticipation of others’ non-compliance.

On the other side, riders also use the bike fleet as an almost infinite common resource. The ease of finding one wherever they are encourages users not to take care of the two-wheelers and to park them in inappropriate places. This second layer is an example of free-riding, as users are not contributing to the supply of the public good: a fleet of well-functioning bicycles located not only conveniently but also mindful of other urban fluxes. The result of these two problems contradicts the stated goal of the sharing economy of optimizing resource use by replacing ownership with access.

The Tianjin model

As local governments are responsible for regulating the use of public spaces, large cities like Beijing and Shanghai initially opted for limiting the number of bicycles. Nevertheless, Tianjin, a city in northern China that decided not to set a cap, is the city known for having most successfully regulated micromobility in the country. Instead, it opted for drafting specific operation and maintenance standards. Operators must hire sufficient staff to maintain a well-functioning and adequately distributed fleet (at least one maintenance employee for every 200 bicycles). Additionally, it required each bike to be equipped with GPS and to have a service life of at least three years. The cornerstone of this regulation is the use of geofencing technology to mark off parking areas. Operators must in turn show these areas in their apps. They can use either carrots, sticks or both to encourage their clients to respect them.

All these measures aim at tackling the two tragedies of the commons mentioned above. Tianjin went further, and enacted comprehensive regulations related to another critical variable that goes beyond minimizing the nuisances to urban life introduced by micromobility: data sharing. Regulations specify that operators must share data on users’ profiles, ridership and bike locations through a jointly accessible database.

In January 2018, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology built a free-floating bike sharing platform for cities to access operator data. This data will serve as critical input to plan future micromobility infrastructure. Alternative transportation modes mainly fill the last mile gap and knowledge sharing between local officials and private operators could catalyze that goal. Applying operator-compiled data to the design of cycling, but also transit infrastructure, can make micromobility safer, more comfortable and intermodal.

Regulating micromobility in Latin America: different challenges

Micromobility landed in Latin American cities in 2018, when e-scooters and shared bicycles started operating. Average purchasing power in the region is lower than in the cities where the service emerged, meaning that these devices are only accessible to high-income commuters. Moreover, operators only offer the service in affluent neighborhoods. Finally, above-average theft and vandalism has made operators more precautious. For these reasons, Chinese-style oversupply is unlikely to happen in the region.

The city of Bogotá is in the process of drafting a regulatory framework for these devices. The activity has been framed as a form of public space usufruct and thus requires operators to pay the municipality. Bogotá’s Secretary of Mobility designated off-street parking areas through geofencing and physically demarcated them. Other non-demarcated on-street areas deemed suitable for parking appear in micromobility apps, and the rider should respect a set of rules to prevent traffic obstruction. Additionally, operators must submit plans specifying adequate fleet management and road safety measures. Concerning data sharing, operators must also create a shared platform. They must submit monthly reports with road accidents and pricing data, two elements that are particularly relevant in Latin American cities, due to higher price-elasticity for transport. These rules are aligned with Tianjin’s approach and, if enforced properly, will make micromobility a win-win game for the city, riders and companies alike.

Ultimately, cities do not only have the responsibility to regulate the operation, which is fairly feasible even if it requires planning and enforcement, but also to capitalize on the technological component of micromobility by gathering all the data generated. Bogotá seems to have understood that it can do more than just minimizing negative micromobility’s externalities, it can foster positive ones.

In a sense, shared-bikes and e-scooters are more akin to informal transport modes like tuk-tuks or moto-taxis, or even street vending in terms of inappropriate public space use. The main difference is data, which should be used by local governments for the public good by better mapping and analyzing mobility patterns. This would contribute to better spending and a virtuous circle in transport planning.

Andrés Melendro Blanco previously worked as an editor for The Business Year, an international media group, as a consultant for UN-Habitat and as an urban development analyst at ProBogotá, a think-tank dedicated to fostering Bogotá’s sustainability. He holds a bachelor’s degree cum laude in Political Science and a master’s degree in Urban Policy, both from Sciences Po Paris.

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]]>Beyond avoiding the micromobility tragedyInfrastructurePolitics & PlanningJuan Sebastián Benítez BustamanteThu, 18 Jul 2019 16:58:08 +0000https://www.oxfordurbanists.com/oxford-urbanists-monthly/2019/7/18/micromobility-has-it-come-to-change-the-way-we-move592e82d8e6f2e11e078064f8:5cefd745e84dbf0001c87dc2:5d305f026000f0000109a097

In micromobility, urbanites have seem to found what could be one of the biggest solutions of the century for urban mobility. With industry-breaking sales and growth records, the potential for micromobility solutions seems limitless. However, while significant advances have occurred in the industry, micromobility is still not an option for the urban poor around the world. It will take active governance and responsive regulation to align micromobility with the UN’s mandate in SDG 11.

If you are a frequent cyclist in your city, you may have been passed more than once by an e-scooter or e-bike user. Or you may have been surprised by users riding - or balancing on - futuristic electric unicycles. If you still haven’t, there are big chances you will in the near future. And you are not the only one. In addition to the growth in bicycle use, major cities around the world are witnessing a tremendous shift in the ways people are moving. There’s no denying that the car still holds its privilege as the ‘king’ of the streets, but in the face of growing interest in finding more sustainable modes of transportation or escaping from endless traffic jams, people of all ages are starting to use more frequently alternative small mechanic or electric-powered vehicles to reach their destinations.

Bike lanes, sidewalks and roads are now home to an increasing number of personal devices that are changing the way people move from place A to B. This kind of transportation is known as micromobility and, even though its rise seems sudden, we have been preparing for its emergence for almost two centuries. From the first-known invention of the bicycle in 1817 to the appearance of the first scooters around the 1990s, to more recently the incursion of electric skateboards, hoverboards or scooters, urbanites seem to have found in these devices what could be one of the biggest solutions of the century for urban mobility.

BEYOND E-BIKES AND SCOOTERS

Lately, micromobility has been highly associated with shared (either docked or dockless) bikes and scooters. The truth is that micromobility is much more than that. Various definitions coincide on linking micromobility with the vehicles capable of covering more efficiently the first and last mile gap of any trip. However, as defined by Deloitte, “micromobility constitutes forms of transport that can occupy space alongside bicycles”. Both definitions encompass a wide spectrum of vehicles, including bikes and walking - as the most ancient form of transportation-, while adding the infrastructure component to the equation. 

Within this spectrum of vehicles, the industry has been stormed by incredible amounts of creativity. The online platform Have A Go, which has set the goal of helping people to “move away from archaic cars, towards nimble, green, and fun little electric vehicles”, has put together a ‘catalog’ of  vehicles that fit into the definition of micromobility. E-skateboards, e-unicycles, human or electric-powered scooters, folding, compact and electric bikes, human pods and even a category for ‘busters’ - like the Rocketskates, Hovershoes or the Yikebikes-, are just examples of what can be found in the market. These vehicles range in cost significantly, with price tags anywhere from a few hundred to thousands of dollars.

IS MICROMOBILITY A REAL CHANGE-MAKER?

According to McKinsey & Company, “Micromobility could encompass all passenger trips of less than 8 kilometers (5 miles), which account for as much as 50 to 60 percent of today's total passenger miles traveled in China, the European Union, and the United States”. These figures are striking. They mean that almost 60 percent of the trips in these regions can be covered, theoretically, by micromobility solutions, helping to drastically cut down GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions. In addition, micromobility could cover almost 20 percent of public-transport trips - without counting the potential to cover the first and last mile of all trips. This could drastically change the panorama of mobility in the biggest car-producing-and-dependent societies by doing those trips with micromobility solutions.

As exciting as this may sound, theoretical figures need to be put into context before jumping to conclusions. For example, some of the constraints for reaching these numbers can go from security and limited space for activities, like shopping or taking kids to school, to weather variations, users’ physical condition or lower coverage in less-dense, low or middle-income neighborhoods and rural areas. 

However, the reality is that sales of micromobility vehicles have skyrocketed in the last few years and are rapidly shifting the panorama of the urban mobility industry, with many former and recent unicorn companies like Lyft, Lime or Bird (all from the U.S.) leading the way. Bird, less than 14 months after its launch, reached an annual revenue run rate - an indicator of financial performance - of more than $100 million, becoming perhaps the fastest growing company ever. Bird rose to unicorn status faster than any other startup in history, reaching a $2 billion valuation in less than a year; Airbnb and Uber took three and four years respectively. Outside of the U.S., Yellow and Grin, originally from Brazil and Mexico respectively, have joined forces to compete against the tremendous power of Lime and Bird. Under the umbrella of Grow Mobility, these two Latin American companies will jointly own a fleet of 100,000 scooters and 25,000 bicycles spread over six countries of the continent, becoming the third biggest presence of scooters worldwide, after Bird and Lime. In short, this is a fight of giants with the power to transform - positively or negatively - the panorama of mobility in the continent.

While these trends can elicit optimism for the future of mobility, complications still exist. Micromobility is still a nascent area and has to adapt to different contexts and regulations - which in many cases hinder the implementation of these mobility alternatives. But more importantly, micromobility has not yet achieved its most noble purpose, which is to provide equitable access to those for whom the daily commute is still a pain, physically and economically. For example in Bogotá, a city of 8 million with one of the worst traffic congestion rates in Latin America, people spend an average of 96 minutes every day in public transport and at least two hours a day to reach their destinations. Service providers in Bogotá have focused on a segment of the population living in very privileged areas with high incomes - being the only ones with the economic power to pay such expensive services - leaving behind a large majority that live in the outskirts and poor areas of the city.

If looked at integrally and as a long-term process, cities have the chance to use these new micromobility services as a way to interact with their citizens and be more responsive through data collection and analysis. The more data cities gather, the more they can better design for equity. Regina Clewlow, CEO & Co-Founder of Populus, has said that “with the access to real-time data for new mobility services (today primarily dockless shared bikes and scooters), cities are entering a new era of active mobility management”. We must develop better capacities for data sharing to further develop micromobility solutions and better interact with users to understand their major needs. 

In all, it is clear that we are scratching the surface of what is possible to achieve through micromobility. There is still a long way to go before we adequately exploit the vast potential to foster equality and equitable access for disadvantaged communities offered by these new mobility services. 

While significant advances have occurred in the industry, micromobility is still not an option for the urban poor around the world, endlessly affected by the lack of adequate transportation infrastructure. Whilst providing an innovative and efficient service, concerns about high fees and coverage for low-income and disadvantaged communities are increasing fears about starting to see micromobility solutions as luxury services, made for ‘cool’ people in ‘cool’ areas. It will take active governance and responsive regulation to persuade private companies to align with the UN’s mandate in SDG 11 to “...provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all, [...] with special attention to the needs of those in vulnerable situations...”. While cities continue to look for more flexible and innovative ways of transportation worldwide, only time will tell if micromobility will be a sustainable and inclusive alternative to change the way we all move. 

For more insights about micromobility around the world, see the following articles:

• Micromobility’s 15,000-mile checkup - McKinsey & Company

• Small is beautiful- Deloitte

• Shared Micromobility Playbook - Transportation for America T4A

• Invasion of the electric scooter: can our cities cope? - The Guardian

Juan Sebastián Benítez B. holds a MSc in Integrated Urbanism and Sustainable Design from the University of Stuttgart, Germany. He is also a Civil Engineer from Los Andes University, Colombia. Through his academic and professional career, he has channeled his efforts and capabilities towards more just and livable cities.

This July, Oxford Urbanists’ monthly discussion looks at the case for transportation electrification in cities. From the governance framework to the regional and micromobility scales, this conversation highlights the challenges in bypassing the fossil-fuelled, car-centred model as the unanimous alternative.

The ability to move people and goods holds a direct relationship with economic growth and the quality of life in cities. Its importance is evidenced by the fact that transport networks and systems are at the core of several objectives prioritized by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Indeed, they highlight the need to provide accessible, affordable and sustainable transport for all, especially to vulnerable groups, while reducing the per capita environmental impact of cities. Therefore, increasing universal access in urban areas, energy efficiency and improving air quality through the reduction of pollutant and GHG emissions are key drivers of the increasing emergence of electric vehicles (EVs) use.

 Whether it is the result of public policies to improve mobility and reduce air pollution in cities, or the effect of market innovation, the expansion of transportation electrification to new transport modes is the subject of numerous studies and reports. Its important environmental benefits are contrasted with the multiple challenges for its wider implementation. Among the latter, availability, cost and performance of energy supply technologies are the main constraints - especially for cities in developing countries - to scale up the existing initiatives, both for public and private vehicles, and transition to an integrated electrical transport model.

Despite the many efforts to transform energy and mobility systems, global concern exists about the pace at which these two sectors will be able to adapt. Their transformation must meet demographic and economic growth, especially in the light of the sectors’ impacts on climate change, and the need to rapidly achieve transport-related climate objectives, without leaving anyone behind.

Oxford Urbanists’ monthly discussion this July looks at the case of innovation and infrastructure for the transportation electrification in cities. The conversation encompasses the governance framework, addressing from the regional to the micromobility scales, bypassing the fossil-fuelled, car-centred model as the unanimous alternative. Centering the attention in different examples points to a transition to electric-powered transportation networks in cities around the world. Transportation systems, after all, hold the power to amplify or mitigate the impacts associated with the 1.5°C global warming threshold.

Carol Guerra holds a specialization in Managing and Financing Urban Infrastructure from the Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. She also holds a bachelor’s degree Cum Laude in law and social sciences from Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala. She has ten years of experience in researching legal and institutional frameworks to understand their impact on urban development. Working as a consultant for multilateral organizations, national and local governments, she has contributed in the formulation of policies, laws and regulations for integral urban development and affordable housing in Guatemala and The Caribbean. She believes in the multidisciplinary approach to urban planning as a means to fully seize its opportunities for economic development and achieve urban inclusivity.

Renata Carvalho is an architect and urbanist (Universidade Federal de Vicosa, Brazil) with a Lato Sensu specialisation in Sustainability of the Built Environment (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil). Her recent research addresses walkability surrounding metro stations in Belo Horizonte (Brazil Infrastructure Institute, 2019). Broader interests include sustainable urban mobility and transport terminus design, focusing on cities for people. Former research analysed residential architecture and modes of living (Congresso Internacional de Habitacao no Espaco Lusofono - “CIHEL”, Lisbon, 2013). She is currently a partner at the Architecture and Urbanism firm Toca in Belo Horizonte and she’s a prospective Chevening scholar for a MSc in Transport and City Planning at University College London.

Two informal settlements in the periphery of the planned city of Chandigarh, India, remain irregular to the eyes of the state. As the sanitation challenge is addressed by public policy with temporary measures, residents are met with brutal actions of eviction and demolitions. Between tolerated and de-legitimised, residents are targeted as electoral mass, but excluded from the ideal city.

The photographs above picture two informal settlements in the periphery of the union territory of Chandigarh, India - a city (in)famously known as one of the earliest planned cities of Independent India, planned and designed by Le Corbusier, and shared as a capital by not one but two states of India: Haryana and Punjab.

One of these informal settlements, known as Indira Colony, lies in Manimajra, a historical town located within the boundary of Chandigarh. The other, called Bhainsa Tibba, is located next to Mansa Devi temple, in Panchkula, a few kilometres away from Manimajra. The essential difference between the two is that the former lies within the administrative boundary of Chandigarh, and the latter beyond it. This difference - at once geographic, administrative and political - has determined the type and quality of amenities that have been provided to these settlements and how people in these areas experience the presence of the state on a daily basis.

The planned city of Chandigarh did not account for any space for low-income migrants. Chalana [2] highlights how these labourers were required to build the planned city but were not welcome to live within or included in the spatial plan of it. They thus gathered in villages near the periphery where they built their own settlements. These were not identified under the law as ‘formal’, and thus continue to exist as informal settlements. The state recognizes that the ideal “planned city” cannot be achieved without the availability of low wage construction workers and thus tolerates low-income migrants and inhabitants in these settlements.

The residents of Indira Colony have been given basic amenities by the state, such as piped water supply, sewerage lines and Swachh Bharat[1] toilets. They enjoy a better relationship with the municipal authorities and their elected representatives than do the people of Bhainsa Tibba, especially during election times. The local leader (also known as Pradhan), Mr. Anil Kumar Sahu, who hails from a small town called Samastipur, in the Indian state of Bihar, said that there has been no demolition drive since May 2014 - after the regime changed to the Centre. He and other residents of Indira Colony were very hopeful of positive developments in the new political regime. Conversing with Mr. Sahu (on March 9, 2019), he expressed:

“yahin mil jaye izzat ka ghar, humne 20 saal kaat liye hain yahan pe”, which translates to English as: “we should get a house respectfully here, we have spent 20 years living here”

The character of the settlement, however, remains makeshift and informal since land rights have not been granted to the residents.

However, the residents of the Bhainsa Tibba (or basti, as it is colloquially known) have a relationship fraught with tensions over land rights with the government of Haryana. They live in fear of a persistent threat of eviction and have been denied basic amenities, such as drinking water and sanitation, within their settlement. They get water via three public taps located on the main access road to the settlement, where water comes for one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. Taking a bath here is a luxury.

The basti has an interesting land history as well. It is located on land that the state has earmarked for a government hospital. The residents, however, believe that the land was granted to them in kind by the daughter of Maharaja of Patiala, who originally owned this piece of land. The local Municipal Corporator, Mrs Kuldeep Kaur Waraich (interviewed on 22 May 2019), explained that the daughter of Maharaja had ceded this land to the state in a court case many years ago, in return for a compensation given to her. The residents of the basti are not aware of this and continue to believe that the land was granted to them by the royal family. This has led to a contestation over the land between the basti residents and the state, more specifically, the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), which conducts regular demolition drives in the basti.

Mrs Waraich said that the last of such attempts to evict by HUDA was in the year 2018. It was resisted by the residents, who hurled stones at the bulldozer that had come to raze their homes. The HUDA workers had to turn back after being attacked by the residents.

While both settlements are what constitute “informal” and “illegal”, there is a difference in the sense of support and security that the residents perceive from the state. The income levels and living conditions of the residents at the two sites are similar. However, the people of Indira Colony are saved from the indignity of open defecation and water-wars, a common sight in Bhainsa Tibba.

Yiftachel [6] points out that, “in the urban policy sphere, including planning, grey spaces are usually tolerated quietly, often even encouraged, while being encaged within discourses of ‘contamination’, ‘criminality’ and ‘public danger’ to the desired ‘order of things’”. This essay demonstrates how two similar settlements are “tolerated” differently in the periphery of Chandigarh and how the politics of resistance shapes them. While the residents in both settlements are migrants and hence treated as “second class citizens”, the degree to which they are tolerated by the state and the local upper-class residents is varied.

A narrative (translated to English) of a resident in Bhainsa Tibba:

“We are always going to be second grade citizens for this government. Everything is for the locals, we aren’t even given the basics. Water is the main problem here. We have health and education facilities in the vicinity but how can we live without water. Everyday our women are scrambling and fighting for water”. (A migrant-resident in Bhainsa Tibba, interviewed on 22 May 2019).

In the photograph above, a family is seen putting up their shack in Bhainsa Tibba. The low-income migrants have no support from the state to build their houses and use their own resources to do so. They use locally available materials, such as tarpaulin sheets, that are not resilient or suited to the weather conditions of Chandigarh. The state’s housing scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), which was supposedly designed to help the urban poor to build their own houses, has become conditional and inaccessible to them.

Bhan [1] argues that the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, launched in 2014, makes it very difficult for the residents of informal settlements to claim money for in-situ housing, since the poor have to prove land ownership in order to claim the benefits from this scheme. Poor migrants from other states are usually illegal occupants of public land and hence, by default excluded from the scheme. Kanwar [4] presents that PMAY has been sluggish in providing housing solutions to the urban poor across India and has not met people’s aspirations and right to adequate housing.

Failing to provide housing to its urban poor, the state has chosen to turn a blind eye to what constitutes an “encroachment” of public land in Indira Colony. To an extent, migrants are being “tolerated” in Bhainsa Tibba too - although with frequent reminders that they are “illegal” by demolishing their tenements. Adding to the grievances, the middle-class residents near the Bhainsa Tibba informal settlement frequently complain about open defecation in the area, leading to repeated persecution of this community by local development authorities.

Yiftachel [6] highlights how the emergence of ‘stubborn’ informalities is ‘handled’ not through corrective or equalizing policy, but through a range of de-legitimization and criminalization discourses. This creates boundaries that divide urban groups according to their status – a process of ‘separating incorporation’. This double-edged move tends to preserve grey spaces, activities and populations in ‘permanent temporariness’ – concurrently tolerated and condemned, and perpetually waiting ‘to be corrected’.

Across India, it is not uncommon for the state to deliberately maintain this “temporariness” and use the urban poor as vote banks. Through temporary stops and handing out piped water connections, sewerage lines and Swachh Bharat toilets to the residents of Indira Colony, the government of Chandigarh has managed to please the community. A longer-term solution, however, would entail giving land-rights to the people so that they can build better houses for themselves. The discourse of in-situ land-rights is missing in both sites: Indira Colony and Bhainsa Tibba.

When it comes to the capital of India - the National Capital Territory of Delhi, Ghertner [3] argues that evictions are guided by the “rule of aesthetics” rather than the “rule of law”. This is relevant in the context of Chandigarh as well, where the government aims to maintain the “city beautiful” character of Chandigarh, whilst playing the politics of and with the periphery’s informal settlements. Naik [5] warns that the Chandigarh model of planning Indian cities will lead to a huge failure, for it fails to accommodate the diversity and variety that is characteristic of Indian cities. In essence, untll the urban poor are given their due space and rights on land, the ideal “inclusive-city” will not be achieved and, as Naik points out, this will create huge challenges in the future.

[1] Swachh Bharat toilets are the toilets constructed as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan, which translates to English as Clean India Mission, launched in 2014 by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a vision to eradicate open defecation in India by October 2, 2019.  

Works Cited

[1]  Bhan, G (2017) From the basti to the ‘house’: Socio-spatial readings of housing policy in India, in Current Sociology, Vol 65, Number 4, Monograph 2.

[2] Chalana, M. (2015) Chandigarh: City and periphery, Journal of Planning History 14 (1):62–84. doi:10.1177/1538513214543904

[3] Ghertner DS (2015) Rule by aesthetics: World-class city making in Delhi. Oxford University Press.

[4] Kanwar, S (2019) How the PM's Affordable Housing Scheme Went From Promising to Dysfunctional, The Wire, https://thewire.in/urban/housing-urban-policy-scheme.

[5] Naik, M (June, 2019) India must shun Nehruvian metropolis bias & turn to small cities for urban economic growth, The Print, https://theprint.in/opinion/india-needs-to-shun-nehruvian-megacity-bias-turn-to-small-cities-for-urban-economic-growth/246459/?fbclid=IwAR241rmpTXCG51GfOLzKRdJnlq98KUgdHqyup1EW_QS7ZVmXvYjm_PGSaco

[6] Yiftachel, O (2009) Theoretical Notes on ‘Gray Cities’: The coming of Urban Aparthied? Planning Theory, Vol 8(1): 87–99, DOI: 10.1177/1473095208099300

Dr. Kanchan Gandhi is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at IISER Mohali. She is an academic, a thinker and philosopher, a writer of fiction and non-fiction who likes to wear many hats. Dr. Gandhi has taught courses in urban and regional studies at Ansal University Gurgaon and Xavier University, Bhubaneswar. She has also been a visiting faculty member at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. Kanchan guides studio projects related to urban and regional planning and accompanies students in the field.

Andrés Linares is an urban planner at AECOM in Colombia, where he has participated in the reconstruction of a town swiped away by a natural disaster and in the planning of Bogotá’s urban expansion. He is responding here to a set of questions proposed by Andrés Melendro, regarding his works. Melendro holds a bachelor’s degree cum laude in Political Science and a master’s degree in Urban Policy from Sciences Po Paris.

AB: What role does informality play in the new settlements planned by AECOM?

AL: I was involved for several years in the reconstruction of Gramalote, a small town of 3000 inhabitants located in Northeastern Colombia, which was severely damaged by a landslide triggered by La Niña phenomenon in 2010. The Colombian Government promised to relocate the town in a suitable location for its dwellers to reconstruct their social ties and economic activities, since the risk in the previous location was too high to be managed through disaster preparedness. During the planning phase we realized 60% of the inhabitants did not have land tenure, meaning they were either tenants or squatters of private or public land. Nonetheless, authorities decided that any household that didn’t own property somewhere else and was below the poverty line would be entitled to housing in New Gramalote. That was the first moment we came across informality. In general, planning assumes formality as a starting point. A legal instrument cannot be based upon informality.

Due to the national policy implemented by the Ministry of Housing to allocate 100,000 free houses, after receiving property rights, , house owners had to start paying property tax. Even though the amount was not very high, the payment itself was a novelty for many of them.

AB: To what extent can the design of a new settlement influence local economic development?

AL:The reconstruction of Gramalote did not include the construction of new roads, therefore the town is still relatively isolated from larger urban agglomerations. In fact, it is possible to draw a comparison with Radiator Springs, the town where the animated movie Cars takes place. When they are no longer at the intersection of roads linking cities, towns tend to decay. Even if the disaster would not have happened, Gramalote would have lost 20% of its inhabitants in 10 years. The reconstruction process itself attracts people, since it boosts the economy by creating employment. Nevertheless, many youngsters who moved to Cúcuta, the provincial capital, during the reconstruction, did not move back because job offers are very limited in a small town. The new dwellers are mainly retired persons attracted by the quality of life of New Gramalote. Urban planning in Latin America prioritizes access to housing. Yet, if this is not coupled with sufficient jobs and education offer, population will not settle down on the medium term.

Concerning local finances, before the disaster the municipality was in red numbers. Now that the new settlement has been built with higher urban design standards, which imply higher maintenance costs, it raises the question of financial sustainability. Local authorities have opted for raising more taxes, including some that existed but were not collected locally. Yet the challenge is still present.

AB: How is the interaction between land use regulation and the dynamic of informal trade in the public space?

AL: Urban planning in Colombia nowadays tends to favor mixed uses, in part to discourage informal street vending. All the houses in New Gramalote were designed taking into account that principle. Each house has a space that the family can devote to commerce. The zoning of the land use code establishes that the town center can have a higher commercial density. Some activities like car repairing cannot be carried in a house and require a dedicated independent space. We conducted a benchmark of the commercial offer in neighboring towns, as well as a survey of the businesses present in old Gramalote to assess how much retail space the new settlement needed and what its ideal location was. This way, we tried to reduce the informal occupation of public space.

AB: What differences would you highlight between the economic dynamic of old and new Gramalote?

AL: We identified people who used to run a business, regardless of whether it was formal or informal and the Government offered economic revitalization programs to them. Families had to compete with a business plan to receive formalization and strengthening mentoring. In particular, training was offered by SENA (the institution in charge of vocational education) and also financial support to launch a business. This initiative was successful. Nowadays the businesses that received counseling generate income and pay taxes. Somehow, economic progress can hardly be measured yet, since little time has passed, and small companies are still receiving subsidies.

AB: According to your experience, can urban planning negatively affect informality levels?

AL: Planning is an activity carried or lead by the national or local government. It is by definition tied to the willingness to formalize a territory. Even though, it can also produce unwanted effects. For instance, the Government decided that New Gramalote had to follow all urban design standards (sidewalks, public spaces, etc.) introduced by the New Urban Agenda. This implied that the town went from having an area of 30 Ha to 100 Ha approximately. This expansion meant a rise in distances and the emergence of informal transport offer that did not exist in the old town: mototaxis.

AB: What are the main differences between planning cities and towns?

AL: During our planning workshops, residents were told the new town would have much more green space. Nevertheless, they seemed uninterested by this feature, something that wouldn’t happen in a city. In fact, the town is surrounded by green fields and many of its residents are farmers and thus work surrounded by greenery. This highlights the importance of citizen participation in the planning process.

Andrés Melendro Blanco is currently studying mandarin and environmental policy at Tsinghua University in Beijing. His main interest is the spatial analysis of public policies. He is currently conducting research on China’s climate change adaptation strategies in light of its accelerated urbanization process. He is looking forward to contrasting them with Latin American experiences through Oxford Urbanists. He previously worked as an editor for The Business Year, an international media group, as a consultant for UN-Habitat and as an urban development analyst at ProBogotá, a think-tank dedicated to fostering Bogotá’s sustainability. He holds a bachelor’s degree cum laude in Political Science and a master’s degree in Urban Policy, both from Sciences Po Paris.

Although a vital element of urban life, informal workers in public spaces are often stigmatized and neglected by traditional policies and academy. Despite their vulnerability, they can develop valuable resilience skills and influence spatial dynamics. In order to leverage their innovation potential, our cities should provide a more flexible regulatory framework, transforming the public space in a safe platform that fosters inclusion and healthy competition.

Paola Daza, a street vendor in Bogotá, tells a story that is unfortunately all too common in Colombia. In the beginning of the 2000s, her father was murdered on the family’s coffee farm in Eastern Antioquia during Colombia’s internal war, which has plagued the country since the mid 1960s. As a result, she was forcedly displaced to the capital city, Bogotá, along with her mother and four siblings. In 2003, at the age of 15, and without a high school degree, she became pregnant. Having to look after the newborn, she was forced to become a street vendor. Hoping to support her new family, she finished high school during the weekends, and given her outstanding performance, she was offered a scholarship to pursue a technical career in management. She found a job, from which she resigned after eight months due to the low salary and the extensive and inflexible working hours. She had to come back to her ‘chaza’ (a colloquial name for a street vending stall) but her dreams did not stop there; a few years later, she entered university. She received her psychology diploma, entirely financed by her informal business, in June 2018. 

Paola’s story is endemic to many parts of Colombia as well as much of the world. Around 200,000 people work informally in the public space in Bogotá alone. That does not even compare with the total amount of non-agricultural informal workers which, in the case of Colombia, accounts for 48% of the working population and in some parts of the world - like in South East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa - for more than 70%.

 Even though informal workers are an integral part of daily life for millions of people around the world, they are often criminalized, diminished or abandoned, and suffer from constant stigma and exposure to all kinds of vulnerabilities. Usually, the same governmental institutions who neglect their basic needs and rights, punish their practice, which further aggravates their socio-economic vulnerability.

 Despite these adverse conditions, informal workers find ways to survive within threatening environments. Many of them have found in the public space the perfect platform to carry out their work and earn a living. Out of the necessity to constantly adapt to the hassles of working ‘on the streets’, Informal Workers in the Public Space (IWPS) have revealed attributes that could be associated with the nature of social resilience.

 However, their work, which influences social and spatial dynamics, is still largely invisible and not yet well-understood. The lack of evidence and the traditional linkage of this practice with illegality and underdevelopment have hindered authorities, academics and policy-makers from providing adequate and more effective solutions for this widespread phenomenon.

 To help fill this gap, I conducted research in Bogotá that sought to find empiric evidence of the adaptation and survival mechanisms of the IWPS and draw connections to the creation of social resilience. This way, lessons could be drawn on how IWPS practices could be embedded within the urban resilience agendas and extended to other vulnerable communities or groups.

Entering the informal economy is an adaptation mechanism to cope with personal or professional life experiences (See Figure 1). But this is just the beginning of a series of adverse conditions or threats to overcome (see Figure 2). The IWPS constantly respond to those threats, recover and devise mitigation mechanisms for the future.

The Downside

The most striking result of my study came from very low levels of confidence in the political and institutional sphere. Corruption, bribes and political volatility are just some examples of the reasons why the IWPS have lost full confidence in institutions like the police, Congress, and local representative bodies. This hatred and mistrust is producing a snowball effect in their minds, as the pressure and abuses just continue to increase. In addition, official data from the Institute for the Social Economy (IPES) confirmed very low access to health protection and education. Most of the workers are protected by Colombia’s subsidized social security scheme, which is characterized by poor coverage and degrading treatment. Finally, almost 70% of the IWPS haven’t finished secondary education, with the elderly being the least educated.

The Positive

Not having a formal education does not imply that informal workers do not have valuable skills, contrary to what traditionalist approaches portray. By experience, observation or trial and error, the IWPS have acquired most of the capacities necessary to carry out their work (See Figure 4). The latter is complemented by their incredible networking capacities, evidenced by the creation of meaningful social links with other workers, citizens, authorities or institutions. Far from being mere social relationships, these links have proven to be effective when the integrity of the IWPS is threatened.

Let's Talk About the Space

 In terms of their working space, it is visible how the more compact, enclosed and ‘protective’ the space, the more bonding among informal workers takes place. But the public space is not just a contested arena where some individuals create livelihoods. It is an open platform for people to showcase their abilities and inventions. While the presence of informality in the public space could create chaos, it can also become an attraction, enriching cultural, social and spatial environments. Many IWPS have made the best possible out of their limited resources out of creativity, resourcefulness and ingenuity. The desire to offer the best product, performance or service drives some individuals to stand out from the rest (See Figure 5).

Further Questions

The evidence found reinforced the idea that the IWPS' long story of adaptation has carried alongside a creation of social resilience, which has been largely overlooked. However, more and more evidence is needed to support this assertion. Its importance relies on how this can trigger debates that question the applicability of traditionalist approaches towards the Informal Economy, which have proven ineffective, and to offer an alternative vision of the public space as a platform with the potential to foster inclusion. Adopting authoritarian and punishment-based policies towards the IWPS goes against the potential for innovation and social resilience per se. We still owe them, and our cities at large, a legal framework flexible enough to accept the public space as safer platform to promote a healthier culture of competition, creativity and innovation.

 For full access to this research please follow the link below: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Juan_Benitez_Bustamante

Juan Sebastián Bustamante holds a MSc in Integrated Urbanism and Sustainable Design from the University of Stuttgart, Germany. He is also a Civil Engineer from Los Andes University, Colombia. Through his academic and professional career, he has channeled his efforts and capabilities towards more just and livable cities.

Oxford Urbanists’ June regional monthly topic enters the global debate on the importance of mainstreaming urban informality analysis as part of urban planning and decision-making.

With 80% of Latin America’s population living in cities, this region’s urban reality is deeply connected to the lives of millions of people who, for many circumstances, are forced to migrate to urban areas. There, they often struggle to find ways to adapt to the urban environment, as cities continue to grow facing multiple challenges and limitations that prevent them from providing affordable housing and adequate public services to the constantly increasing number of newcomers.

Living outside the planned city, this population has historically been overlooked by urban policies and plans. Its contribution to the urban environment, the local economy, the social vibrancy and cultural diversity has been greatly underestimated. Therefore, the notion of “urban informality” that addresses this phenomenon, is key to understanding how neglecting the needs and challenges of this population contributes to widen the inequality gap in the region’s cities.

As such, OU June’s regional monthly topic further advances the global debate on the importance of mainstreaming urban informality analysis as part of urban planning and decision-making. This approach is especially relevant in the Latin American rapid urbanization context, to seize the potential opportunities presented by urban informality to develop  inclusive, resilient and sustainable cities.

Carol Guerra holds a specialization in Managing and Financing Urban Infrastructure from the Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. She also holds a bachelor’s degree Cum Laude in law and social sciences from Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala. She has ten years of experience in researching legal and institutional frameworks to understand their impact on urban development. Working as a consultant for multilateral organizations, national and local governments, she has contributed in the formulation of policies, laws and regulations for integral urban development and affordable housing in Guatemala and The Caribbean. She believes in the multidisciplinary approach to urban planning as a means to fully seize its opportunities for economic development and achieve urban inclusivity.