Urban Policies Confront the Pandemic Challenge

By N. GUNASEKARAN

The COVID-19 pandemic has become the main focus of the entire world. It was the subject of both serious research and media discourse globally on an almost daily basis. The debates on various aspects of disease have not only confined to the sphere of health, but also encompassed the wide range of issues in economy, politics, society, psychology and ideology. However, a less discussed aspect was the indication that the pandemic was mainly urban-centric and how urbanization was compatible for the faster proliferation of disease.

India's health ministry reported on May 16, 2020, that the rural districts in India accounted for only 21% of the total number of COVID-19 cases. Earlier, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while announcing the fourth phase of the lockdown in India, resolved to "deal with COVID-19 with a sharp focus on ensuring that rural areas remain free from the pandemic.” Although the number of cases in rural areas is now increasing, the cities, account for almost 80% of the total cases. The people living in Indian cities like Chennai in Southern India and Mumbai in Western India were the worst-affected urban centers.

The concentration of a succession of epidemics and pandemics in cities had been evident, quite some time ago. The history of cities showed that a series of viruses targeted the population of the cities. The “Spanish Flu” of 1918 devastated the urban populations in Pittsburgh and New York City. In the last 20 years, the occurrence of many outbreaks, such as SARS, H1N1, Ebola and the Zika virus claimed lives at an unprecedented scale, resulting in enormous economic losses, as well. This trend had developed along with an ever-larger shift of populations to urban areas.

The countries that suffered the highest number of COVID-19 cases were highly urbanized countries. Spain, Italy, France, UK, Germany, Turkey and Russia in Europe have about three-fourths of their populations in urban areas. The US is the most urbanized country. Iran has more than 70% urban population and China has about 60%.

The UN Habitat data revealed that, of the top 10 most densely populated cities in the world, six are in Asia, three are in Africa and one is in South America. All these cities were the worst-affected by COVID-19.Across Asia, rural people due to the shrinking employment opportunities in agriculture, are moving to cities in search of better economic opportunities. Asian cities have grown at an unprecedented rate.Currently; about one-half of all people in Asia were living in cities. Between 1965 and 2015, Asia witnessed nearly fivefold increase in urban population—from 430 million to 2.1 billion. The rapid expansion of cities together with inadequate housing, transportation, water, or sanitation is the developing phenomena in Asia. Most of the so-called “peri-urban" areas are the hotspots for disease. The COVID-19 has now exposed the link between unplanned urban expansion and epidemic outbreaks.

The most densely populated urban areas are the slums with the poorest inhabitants, living in extremely tough conditions. In India, Dharavi in Mumbai city is the COVID-19 affected area; it was one of the densely populated slum areas with a density of over 200,000 people per square kilometer. On May 20, 1,353 cases were reported in Dharavi, with the number increasing on a daily basis.

Past epidemic outbreaks had taught humanity many lessons. But the ruling establishments across the world did not take into account those lessons. Increased intensity of health crises and thereby people being infected massively during the peak of the epidemic would happen when there were very poor health infrastructure facilities. And, during lockdown periods, strategies such as detection, contacts tracing and massive testing should have to be implemented for effective mitigation. On both these accounts, the performance of the governments was very poor.

The character of the epidemics was that it would occur first in cities with national and international airports and consisting of dense human populations. In the absence of effective actions in cities to mitigate the infections, then it would spread to rural areas. So, the effective health interventions in urban areas are very important. Lack of proper interventions by the authorities in many cities in the Asian region is the matter of serious concern.

The kind of urbanization developing in Asian cities is one of the main reasons for worsening epidemics. In underdeveloped countries, urbanization is strongly related to high-density living conditions and acute poverty among the people with lesser access to basic necessities like nutritious food, shelter, sanitation, clean water, medical care, affordable transportation and education.

Establishing standard health-care facilities, improving the general quality of public health and increased economic opportunities for the urban poor could mitigate the offensive of the pandemics. The free-market neoliberalism of the ruling elites led to the withdrawal of the states from these welfare activities and private and corporate capital were allowed in service sectors including health and education.

In most of the cities in Asia urbanization was designed in such an unplanned manner that the density of the population is much higher and aggravating the urban crisis. This problem is common for East Asia with 20 cities, including China's 15 cities, South Asia with 10 cities, including India's seven cities, Southeast Asia with seven cities and West Asia with three cities.

The hardworking people in the unorganized sectors, including migrant workers, are actually the main architects of all these Asian cities. They are working on big projects in construction and basic infrastructures like metro rail and road transport. But these workers, working women and youth, are all struggling to find living space in these cities. Most of these sections are driven to the outer areas and they are leading their life as slum dwellers.

The number of slums in the peripheral areas of the cities is increasing. But in the main areas, there are big building complexes, IT parks, residential buildings, restaurants, and retail outlets luxurious hotels, commercial buildings, malls, theatres and huge recreation parks among others. The rich, upper middle classes who amassed huge wealth in the era of neoliberalism enjoy shopping, recreation and business activities in these big urban spaces.

Such urban scenarios prevailing today in cities are naturally congenial for larger congregations; hence, it is difficult to maintain social distancing to avoid corona infections. The likelihood of this trend would continue in future if the cities are not redesigned and reinvented. The governments should change their policies and they should provide enough urban space for the poor and the working people, instead of giving major share of the urban space for the big corporates.The working urban population, who are the majority in cities, should get opportunities to lead the healthy and quality of life. The urban policies should be re-oriented accordingly.

N. Gunasekaran is a political activist and writer based in Chennai, India.

From The Progressive Populist, June 15, 2020

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