1st Edition
Cities Learning from a Pandemic Towards Preparedness
COVID-19 has stressed the condition of radical uncertainty that increasingly characterises our times and compels cities to learn new ways to cope with unexpected global urban challenges. The volume proposes preparedness as a key concept in urban geography, planning, and policy, inviting international scholars to discuss its pros and cons.
Firstly, it builds a critical theoretical framework around the concept of preparedness in relation to the COVID-19 effects and other interconnected crises. Then, the authors put at work and redefine preparedness, starting from worldwide surveys, research experiences, public discourses and spatial strategies analysis in Europe and, more extensively, in Italy. Finally, the closing section goes beyond the view of preparedness as an emergency tool, proposing to interpret it more broadly as a technology supporting a sustainable urban transition.
The book mainly targets academics in urban planning, policy, and geography. However, the prominence of the topic of preparedness makes the volume an essential reading not only within social sciences but further in engineering, basic sciences, and life science. In addition, the book provides directions to practitioners and civic leaders in supporting cities and regions to prepare themselves in the face of pandemics and unpredictable socio-environmental shocks.
List of figures
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
Simonetta Armondi, Alessandro Balducci, Martina Bovo and Beatrice Galimberti
Part 1. Interpretations: a theoretical framework and emerging territorial issues
2. The key of preparedness
Alessandro Balducci
3. Supporting urban planning to stay with uncertainty: Preparedness, care, and antifragility.
Beatrice Galimberti
4. Preparedness as a technology of the imagination. Interview with Andrew Lakoff and Frédéric Keck
Simonetta Armondi, Alessandro Balducci, Martina Bovo, Beatrice Galimberti
5. Spatial strategies for getting ready? The weak linkage amid preparedness and urban policy
Simonetta Armondi
Part 2. Observations: experiences of (un)preparedness in Europe
6. What future for European cities after COVID-19? An international survey
Paolo Perulli, Francesco Bandarin, Enrico Ciciotti, Marco Cremaschi, Giovanna Madera, Diana Shendrikova
7. Analysis of Madrid’s urban policies in the period 2020-2021. Towards a more resilient post-coronavirus capital?
Sonia De Gregorio Hurtado, Nicolas Gharbi
8. The impacts of the sanitary crisis on the French urban areas and their likely effects on urban policies
Christian Lefèvre
9. COVID-19 in the Lombardy region: socio-spatial peripheries and forgotten densities of long-term care
Lorenzo De Vidovich, Samantha Biglieri, Julian Iacobelli, Roger Keil
10. Urban and manufacturing after the pandemic, preparing a new ground for the productive city
Valeria Fedeli, Carolina Pacchi
11. Distributing, desynchronising, digitalising: towards a new mobile urbanity in the COVID-19 era
Giovanni Lanza, Paola Pucci
12. Changing uses in public spaces: dehors’ supporting measures in Italy in COVID-19 times
Antonella Bruzzese
13. Housing as a basic infrastructure against risks: the case of COVID-19 housing support measures in Greece
George Kandylis, Dimitra Siatitsa, Thomas Maloutas
14. Governing pandemics at the local level: the case of COVID-19 in Albania
Rudina Toto, Merita Toska, Dritan Shutina
15. Schools and cities: spaces for solutions
Massimo Bricocoli, Filippo Orsini, Cristina Renzoni, Paola Savoldi
16. Access to essential services. Migrants’ landing during lockdown
Martina Bovo
17. Urban peripheries after COVID-19 in Italy
Gabriele Pasqui, Agostino Petrillo
18. Afterword: Preparedness supporting the transition
Simonetta Armondi, Alessandro Balducci, Martina Bovo, Beatrice Galimberti
Index
Biography
Simonetta Armondi is an associate professor in Economic and Political Geography at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano (Italy).
Alessandro Balducci is a Full Professor at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano (Italy).
Martina Bovo is an architect and PhD Candidate at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano (Italy).
Beatrice Galimberti is a PhD Candidate in Urban Planning, Design, and Policy at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano (Italy).
