Save Our Cities 2021: Building Sustainable, Resilient, and Healthy Cities by 2030 through Prevention of and Reduction in Spread of Disease

Abstract

For many individuals, cities are the hubs for which all facets of their life revolve around. The COVID-19 pandemic poses a threat to the health and wellbeing of individuals as well as the sustainability of cities in the future. Cities are a resource hub that have existed for thousands of years. Today’s cities not only provide jobs for millions of people but also function as a place to get educated and interact with other people. Throughout history, cities have been faced at some point with the need to increase their capacity to meet the needs of residents especially during times of distress. The COVID-19 pandemic poses a challenge to cities that do not have the necessary health infrastructure in place when it comes to dealing with pandemics. The very nature of cities-being interconnected to one another primarily through transportation-can be antithetical to any progress made at slowing down the spread of the virus. In the today’s globalized world, people move from one place to the other instantaneously in a very seamless manner. Such movements lead to the creation of so many networks among people who might have never even met face-to- face. As a result, government stakeholders have to exercise the highest form of leadership when it comes to addressing the daily needs of the populace. The government response to this pandemic is also one that needs to be timely since an untimely response not only adds an additional burden to health systems but also leads to mass casualties. With so many variable factors, this paper seeks to explore what a 21st century campaign aimed at tackling COVID-19 ought to have. Throughout this paper, there is special emphasis on contextualizing the response of a city based on trusted data that looks at the local context at hand as well as the heterogeneous makeup of the population being served.