ABSTRACT
Purpose of ReviewThe objective of this study is to review the literature on the role of urban environmental structures and to develop proper strategies to strengthen their resilience so that the management performance of the Corona disease can be enhanced.Recent FindingsCities have been severely affected by the Coronavirus pandemic. Changes in the lifestyle of citizens during the pandemic have led urban planners to the realization that the current structure and function of cities do not meet the needs of citizens. Hence, the structure of urban landscape must be transformed so that cities become livable ecosystems for citizens and the urban environment becomes resilient to all kinds of crises. As a result, considering the new standards of life during the pandemic, the question of what changes to the urban planning and design are required to make cities viable and resilient systems arises. Since the year 2020, much research has been published on the impact of Coronavirus on the lifestyle of citizens and the urban environment. These impacts have positively or negatively affected the structure and function of cities in a direct or indirect manner. Similar to all the related studies, the necessity of making changes to the planning and design of urban landscapes has been emphasized here.SummaryThe present study reviews the literature on the effect of the structure of the urban environment on the corona pandemic management. The objective is to develop proper strategies for planning and designing resilient urban landscapes. It is emphasized that in order to realize the dream of resilient cities during and after the pandemic, the need to develop an interconnected network of green and open urban patches, green transportation system, green neighborhoods, and green residential buildings should be met so that urban resilience and livability can be achieved at a higher level.
ABSTRACT
An engaged community that reflects a diverse set of experiences is key to an equitable and livable city. However, maximizing engagement activities is often difficult when competing with residents’ busy schedules and hectic daily lives. To explore new opportunities in this space, we developed four augmented reality experiences to learn more about the potential for this technology to transform community engagement practices in the context of City 4.0. City 4.0 utilizes digital technologies to transform public services and the local economy. Its goal is to produce more sustainable urban and societal outcomes. Our findings suggest that augmented reality is least successful when used to recreate existing engagement practices, such as surveys or questionnaires, and more successful when it empowers a sense of agency and ownership over the process in its users. The way augmented reality situates information can aid in making public space feel personal to the individual. In this way, augmented reality’s affordances are less about overlaying digital information in physical space and more about how this can enable individuals to reclaim a sense of control and relevance in the relationship between citizens and councils. We aim to contribute: (a) novel interaction paradigms and an evaluation of their effectiveness and limitation, and (b) new insights into how to support citizens’ sense of agency in public discourse with augmented reality. This paper highlights the value of augmented reality’s affordances to bring to light new interactions between community engagement stakeholders.
ABSTRACT
Conventional and emerging paradigms of urbanism require new responses under the current circumstances, especially in relation to the integration of sustainability dimensions and technology advances. The escalating rate of urbanization, coupled with the climate emergency, fundamentally indeed disrupt the challenges that urbanism research and practice deal with, calling for adopting more innovative approaches to urban planning and design. With cities contributing around 65% of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and experiencing an unprecedented growth of population, contemporary urban policy needs to be redefined and re-assessed accordingly. While numerous urban models, such as the Compact City, the Eco-City, the Sustainable City, and the Smart City, have emerged in response to the challenges of sustainability and urbanization, the 15-Minute City has recently gained a steep popularity. This paper explores the theoretical, practical, and technological foundations of the 15-Minute City, with a particular focus on the proximity dimension of mixed land-use and its environmental, social, and economic benefits of sustainability as supported by smart technologies. We argue that this evolving model of urbanism has the potential to gain more expansion and success in regard to building more sustainable, efficient, resilient, equitable, and inclusive cities in line with the global agendas of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11, as it adds a strategic value to the amalgam of the prevailing and emerging paradigms of urbanism and their synergies with respect to increasing the benefits of sustainability while emphasizing its environmental dimension.
ABSTRACT
From the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, the scientific community has been continuously trying to assess the virus, its socio-environmental impacts, regulatory/adaptation policies, and plans. The emergency is to develop pandemic-resilient city planning and management in order to tackle the infectious diseases during COVID-19. Such development includes the reframing of unsustainable urban patterns, hazards, and social inequalities to be prepared for the emerging cases. In this study, we focus on the assessment of disaster risk management (DRM), which will help to develop pandemic-resilient urban strategies (response, mitigation, and preparedness phase) through analyzing previously published literature. Short- and long-term recommendations for pandemic resilience urban planning and design have also been provided. In the response phase, implementation of the smart and resilient city design and policies has been highlighted to identify disease transmission. In the mitigation phase, new technological approaches can be adopted for better management of present and future pandemics. The physical (urban access, infrastructure, environmental factors, and land use patterns) and non-physical (socio-cultural, governance, and economic factors) aspects of resilient urban strategies have been focused, which may help to develop understanding of health- and disaster-related risks in pandemic. In the preparedness phase, proactive measures such as capacity building of people toward any outbreak and different simulation processes (models of transmission pattern) can be adopted for future pandemics. We also discuss about the enhancement of urban resiliency in housing, public spaces, and cities that may bring the effective outcome of DRM framework to combat pandemic. The study focuses on the major lessons that can be adopted for post-pandemic urban resilient planning related to disaster management and climate change adaptation, preventing extensive challenges of sustainability apart. In the following months and years, it will be difficult to assess various changes to develop urban planning and design in the post-COVID-19 world. However, this study expresses the possibility of creating good opportunities for policymakers and city planners to undertake significant transformative and advanced actions during the three different phases of DRM. This study presents a novel approach to delineate the scope of DRM framework in achieving more resilient cities (RC) to tackle future pandemics. This study will also crucially help the planners and decision-makers in better assessing and addressing the strategic and resilient urban design and planning approach in future.
ABSTRACT
Background: The worldwide emergence of future pandemics emphasizes the need to assess the pandemic resilient urban form to prevent infectious disease transmission during this epidemic. According to the lessons of the COVID-19 outbreak, this study aimed to review the current strategies of responding to pandemics through disaster risk management (DRM) to develop a pandemic-resilient urban form in phases of response, mitigation, and preparedness. Methods: The research method is developed through desk study was used to explore the current literature of urban form responded to COVID-19 pandemic and for the text analysis; qualitative content analysis was applied developing a conceptual framework. Results: To create pandemic resilient urban form, this study proposes principles to enhance the urban form resiliency in 3 scales of housing, neighborhoods/public spaces, and cities. These principles focus on the concept of resilient urban form from new perspectives focusing on the physical and nonphysical aspects of resilient urban form, which develops a new understanding of pandemics as a disaster and health-related emergency risks. The physical aspect of resiliency to epidemic outbreaks includes urban form, access, infrastructure, land use, and natural environment factors. Moreover, the nonphysical aspect can be defined by the sociocultural, economic, and political (including good governance) factors. By providing and enhancing the physical and nonphysical prerequisites, several benefits can be gained and the effectiveness of all response, mitigation, and preparedness activities can be supported. Conclusion: As the pandemic's disruptions influence the citizens' lifestyle dramatically, the prominent role of place characteristics in the outbreak of pandemics, policymakers, urban planners, and urban designers should be pulled together to make urban areas more resilient places for epidemics and pandemics.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused huge deaths, massive damage and losses around the world. Looking back in history, the motivation for construction and development of cities was to enhance disaster prevention capacity, while modern cities are built and developed to improve health and wellness for human beings. Each disaster would pose some new challenges to the urban planning and architectural design, such as COVID-19. Therefore, the dilemma of future multi disasters (e.g. epidemics) would lead to reflections on the revision or change of urban design regulations. For the post-epidemic era, a comprehensive and integrated prevention system should be established for multi urban disasters, which requires to be optimally formulated based on multiple objectives, i.e., on the balancing of disaster occurrence probability and stop loss cost. This will be realized thanks to the rapid development of digital alike advanced technologies. Thus, this paper aims to provide a reference for the prevention and control of future city epidemics and disasters in responding to strategies of urban planning and design by considering the reform of urban construction related regulations, further to facilitate the creation of healthy and safe urban environments.