Towards building resilient cities to pandemics: A review of COVID-19 literature

Abstract

With the global prevalence of COVID-19 disease, the concept of urban resilience against pandemics has drawn the attention of a wide range of researchers, urban planners, and policymakers. This study aims to identify the major dimensions and principles of urban resilience to pandemics through a systematic review focused on lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and comparing different perspectives regarding resilient urban environments to such diseases. Based on the findings, the study proposes a conceptual framework and a series of principles of urban resilience to pandemics, consisting of four spatial levels: housing, neighborhoods, city, and the regional and national scales, and three dimensions of pandemic resilience: pandemic-related health requirements, environmental psychological principles, and general resilience principles. The findings show that resilient cities should be able to implement the pandemic-related health requirements, the psychological principles of the environment to reduce the stresses caused by the pandemic, and the general principles of resilience in the smart city context. This framework provides scholars and policymakers with a comprehensive understanding of resilience on different scales and assists them in making better-informed decisions.

Keywords: Anti-virus urban design; Pandemics; Post-COVID urban planning; Resilient design principles; Urban resilience.

Fig. 1

Procedures for literature search and selection of articles through the research phases. Source: adapted from Moher et al. (2009).

Fig. 2

A conceptual framework for resilient cities to pandemics.

Fig. 3

Comparison between the two types of housing: single-family detached housing and multi-family housing, which involves the positive features of single-family detached housing.

Fig. 4

Resilient neighborhood example.