City Planning May Need a Re-think in the Light of COVID-19

Will the COVID-19 pandemic completely transform how cities are designed? We used the “COVID lens” to rethink urbanization, density, and crisis planning.

Let’s face it — pandemics shape cities. Few of the world’s iconic city planning and management scenarios, such as London’s Metropolitan Board of Works and their sanitation systems, were developed to address health crises like cholera outbreaks. Now as COVID-19 takes the shape of a global pandemic, it is likely to leave a strong footprint on urban space designs.

Undeniably, the origin and spread of COVID-19 has been centered in cities. From Wuhan in China, Mumbai in India, and New York in the United States — dense urban areas have been a key source of infections and have generally been the worst hit. Interestingly, there are some cities like Hong Kong and Singapore that have set examples of how the pandemic can be effectively controlled through several measures.

As the world continues to battle coronavirus, the next big epidemic might just be over the horizon. Additionally, the effects of COVID-19 will linger on for years to come. Therefore, it is time to rethink city planning now and how new designs should address population density, urbanization, and transport, with pandemic preparedness in mind.

Work from Home is the New Normal…

One of the radical changes that we have seen is the “work from home” shift. During the lockdown most companies had to either shut down temporarily or allow their employees work from home to contain the spread of coronavirus, ensure business continuity as well as keeping the nation’s GDP running. Even during the unlock phase worldwide, the work from home model is estimated to be still applicable for 35–40% of the workforce.

Many well-known organizations, including market leaders in the IT industry, are planning to make “remote working” the new norm for years to come. Additionally, most companies still do not have the appropriate building design, systems, and facility to comply with the government’s mandate regarding “social distancing.” Consequently, WFH will continue to be the COVID-19 driven trend.

The work from home and stringent social distancing approaches being maintained across all public/private facilities have completely changed the dynamics of city planning and design. The cities are emptier now. People have limited their visits to public convenience places such as shopping malls, restaurants, gymnasiums, etc.

Most importantly, the imperative to live in “city centers” has reduced significantly because a major share of the working population is now restricted to their homes. As such, the demand for living in strategic locations that are a hub of employment opportunities or have major transportation connectivity will now radically reduce.

Why ‘Relocation’ is the Next Big Thing?

COVID-19 is a global pandemic, with over 27.8 million infected worldwide. Added to that is the severe financial impact. Businesses are being shut down permanently. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs across the world. As such, a major segment of the workforce settled in the cities is now relocating to their home towns or other regional centers. India is one of the top countries to witness many thousands of migrant laborers moving back to their own villages and towns during lockdowns.

Countries such as the USA continue to exhibit significantly higher costs of living as well as a spike in COVID-19 cases every day. That is leading to over 33% of American workers to consider relocating to a regional city or town — where the cost of living is lower and they can maintain optimal social distancing, avoiding the clutter of densely populated cities.

Living in city centers, at proximity to business hubs, offices, public facilities and transportation, isn’t the priority anymore because workers have the opportunity, and in the short term the necessity, to work remotely from anywhere. And trust us; this trend is here to stay.

City Planning Around Social Distancing & ‘Work from Home’ Model

With the above COVID-19 trends in mind, it is crucial to rethink and transform city planning & infrastructure design. Here is a glimpse of how modern cities may be built in the light of coronavirus pandemic:

• As remote working emerges as the new normal, the concept of “office hub” may fade in the years to come as more people are likely to work from home. Therefore, investments in building business hubs or larger office spaces can be reduced.
• Mass public transportation requires a substantial re-think. With more people working from home or avoiding public conveniences to maintain social distancing, the demand for transportation facilities will decrease radically or at best require much broader distribution further away from city centers.
• Modern cities built on the realm of COVID-19 should focus on fewer concentrations of public amenities like parks, shopping malls, hotels and restaurants, theater halls, multiplexes, etc. With fewer people likely to live, or work, in densely populated cities in the years to come, city planning should refocus on designing these amenities in a way which reduces large crowd gathering.

As large metropolitan cities are expected to witness radical changes with less focus on urbanization, it is important that these facilities are now targeted to regional areas to where people are relocating.

In the light of COVID-19 ramifications, cities will see major transformations in the future. Keeping the above factors in mind will help planning for a better cityscape that is inherently able to address any kind of pandemic and other major social shifts in years to come.