Smart Cities and Covid

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One example
Cities for Global Health
https://www.citiesforglobalhealth.org/
FIRST-HAND EXPERIENCES TO RETHINK OUR CITIES FOLLOWING THE PANDEMIC

We share the revitalisation and reinvention initiatives started by cities in this new era brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

i.e. we've had a fairly normal year of winter respiratory deaths, but with a burst of elderly people sent to a slightly premature death as hospitals were emptied during April,[average age of "covid death" about normal life expectancy] and now cities are being reimagined because of that....

BMJ October 3 2018
Cities for global health ****
...

CCBY Open access
Analysis
Cities for global health
BMJ 2018; 363 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k3794 (Published 03 October 2018)
extract -

Smart cities and emerging economies and technologies
Advances in sensing, computing, and communication technologies are creating unprecedented opportunities, as well as challenges, to improving urban health and reducing inequalities. Examples include the use of digital footprints for tracking disease and mobile phones for health information and alerts; distributed sensor technologies to detect water and air pollution, mould, traffic flows and crashes, and crime; better monitoring of, and response to, health of newborns and elderly people through personalised sensing; better nutrition through online shopping and home delivery; and more active or more efficient transportation through bicycle and car sharing systems and eventually autonomous vehicles. Such technologies also have the potential to worsen health and widen inequalities. Sharing systems like Airbnb may be affecting the already limited housing supply in cities, and the gig economy may be worsening social inequalities by reducing wages and job security.4346 Home delivery of goods and services and diversion of traffic to reduce congestion could increase air pollution and the risk of traffic related injuries in residential areas, and reliance on online shopping may increase social isolation. Individual cities cannot stop such trends but will need to carefully monitor their penetration and impact and be prepared to intervene through agile legislative, regulatory, and fiscal policies to maximise benefits and minimise harms, especially in terms of inequalities.

note the caveats.
The paper has an interesting graphic

Note how one of the authors [from Imperial College....] Yvonne Doyle was appointed in 2019 as Medical Director and Director of Health Protection for Public Health England.
She has acted as an adviser to the WHO on healthy cities and continues to take a research interest in urban health and the environment. In 2016 Yvonne was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath for services to public health.
https://publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk ... nne-doyle/
Doyle has attended some SAGE meetings.


Another co-author, Gabriel Leung of Hong Kong predicted coronavirus would spread to 60-80 percent of the global population
Feb 11 2020
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... population

Leung – one of the world’s experts on coronavirus epidemics, who played a major role in the Sars outbreak in 2002-03 – works closely with other leading scientists such as counterparts at Imperial College London and Oxford University.

At the end of January, he warned in a paper in the Lancet that outbreaks were likely to be “growing exponentially” in cities in China, lagging just one to two weeks behind Wuhan.

METROPOLIS
CITIES FOR GLOBAL HEALTH **** where have we seen that before?
Collective Responses to Global Health Emergencies
https://www.metropolis.org/news/cities-global-health
To connect political leaders, policy makers and practitioners worldwide in order to advocate metropolitan interests and improve the performance of metropolises in addressing local and global challenges.

Engaged metropolitan governance is critical to facing the immensity of contemporary urban challenges. Therefore, Metropolis mission will be achieved by a set of means to co-create caring sustainable cities characterized by engaged metropolitan governance

Member cities are scattered except for USA, Japan, Australia and New Zealand
https://www.metropolis.org/members
but include Manchester UK and Montreal and Toronto in Canada
Metropolis is hosting Smart City Live 17-18 November 2020
https://www.metropolis.org/agenda/smart-city-live-2020
which

will consist of a full-day, broadcast television show on day one, with interviews, debates, and success stories focusing on how COVID-19 has impacted cities and is redefining citizens normality,
Smart City Live aims to be the place to collectivize urban power, to increase the strength of cities, to identify business opportunities, to establish partnerships and contribute to enacting common policies. A place to share research, best practices and potential common solutions, achieved through effective collaboration.

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Another one of these global city organisations - GPM the Global Parliament of Mayors [thanks to a commenter on a youtube video]

The UK has one member, Sir Peter Soulsby, Mayor of Leicester, the first English city to lock down!! Go figure. Not too many big cities involved yet, but there is world coverage, including many mayors in the developing world. All the usual buzzwords from the UN soup -
https://globalparliamentofmayors.org/mission-statement/

The Global Parliament of Mayors is a unique governance body of, by and for mayors that functions as a parliament and brings cities to the world fore. To organise and amplify the voice and influence of mayors across the globe, and strengthen the relationship with national governments, networks, multinational institutions, civil society groups, and business.....Citizens of the world need global governance to evolve, seeing cities and international networks sit alongside national and international leaders as equal partners in shaping global policy.



VISION

A world in which mayors, their cities and networks are equal partners in building global governance for an inclusive and sustainable world.
PRODUCING RESOURCES FOR CITIES TO MANAGE COVID-19
...
scholars in the Center for Global Health Science & Security (CGHSS) at Georgetown University Medical Center have been working on pandemic preparedness in cities for years. Nearly a decade ago, Dr. Rebecca Katz, CGHSS Director , co-authored an article redefining the paradigm for public health interventions in the 21st century. Two years ago, Katz and Matthew Boyce, Senior Research Associate at CGHSS, wrote about how future large-scale infectious disease outbreaks, including pandemics, would primarily involve cities.

The role and capacity of local governments to prepare for and manage a global pandemic has been a core subject of Georgetown’s engagement with the Global Parliament of Mayors (GPM). GPM has recently launched the Corona Crisis Campaign, to rapidly share information and approaches for responding to the pandemic, supported by the Georgetown Global Cities Initiative.

We can see how this is all about moving the herd into smart cities.

PS another link from the same youtube comment - the UN Office for Disaster Risk Management. UNDRR, which produced the Sendai Framework which coined the BUILD BACK BETTER slogan for disaster relief in 2015 and had various goals for 2030
(i) Understanding disaster risk; (ii) Strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk; (iii) Investing in disaster reduction for resilience and; (iv) Enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response, and to "Build Back Better" in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction.
https://www.unisdr.org/campaign/resilie ... ack-better

Another department, predictable, of UNDRR - MAKING CITIES RESILIENT - my city is getting ready
https://www.unisdr.org/campaign/resilientcities/


Map of resilient cities -
https://www.unisdr.org/campaign/resilientcities/cities

100 Resilient Cities – Pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation (100RC)
https://www.preventionweb.net/files/494 ... ericas.pdf
This project is dedicated to helping cities around the world become more resilience to the physical, social and economic
challenges that are a growing part of the 21st Century


The list of UN resilient cities is somewhat elusive but there is a map ** Certainly Manchester became one such in 2016 - it also hosted the Ariana Grande disaster drill which would have been a qualifying event, perhaps.
The Greater Manchester Resilience Unit (GMRU) is part of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and is led by the Chief Resilience Officer for Greater Manchester.
https://greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk/wha ... esilience/
Greater Manchester is to deliver the international commitment of the United Nation’s Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015 – 203p


**https://resilientcitiesnetwork.org/ includes Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver in Canada, Belfast, Glasgow, Manchester Bristol and London in UK etc etc

Final word from UNDRR
https://www.undrr.org/drr-and-covid-19

Even before the world brings the COVID-19 disaster under control, we will all be demanding: “Never again.” We can never go back to business as usual. **
The current COVID-19 disaster demonstrates that which UNDRR outlined in the Global Assessment on Risk 2019: risk is systemic, and crises are cascading. Disasters are rapidly producing further disaster to become more complex and deadly.

Everyone is affected, but not everyone is affected equally. The elderly, people living with disabilities, gig workers and the poor and marginalised are most vulnerable. The only solution is prevention. Prevention saves lives.

This is why UNDRR, working with the UN system and other partners, is working to include risk in all development action to make sure hazards of all kinds - including pandemics - do not become disasters.

** but they don't say why. It's all gibberish.

Coming to a city near you? From the UNDRR
Recovery must be addressed in various aspects​
Provide shelter, food, water, communication, addressing psychological needs, etc post-event;

Limit and plan for any use of schools as temporary shelters;

Identify the dead and notifying next of kin;

Conduct debris clearing and management;

Take over abandoned property;

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Global Future Council on Cities of Tomorrow
https://www.weforum.org/communities/gfc ... f-tomorrow

COVID-19 has already significantly altered urban life, both physically and socially. From temporarily widened sidewalks, replacing car parking spaces and roadway with cycleways, to allowing restaurants to expand into the street to enable social distancing, these changes are transforming the urban streetscape. In parallel, citizens are demanding that cities are built back better to become liveable, sustainable and affordable, which requires action on climate and resilience, the provision of vital social infrastructure (health and housing) and the enabling digital infrastructure required for our new normal

Are "citizens" really demanding that? Utter BS from the World Economic Forum.

Sept 2018...opening remarks from the WEF's head of the "Internet of Things" Jeff Merritt - wearing the UN 2030 SDG lapel badge....

Building the Cities of Tomorrow



Agile Cities preparing for the fourth industrial revolution.... The WEF was about to open a centre in CHINA for the Fourth Industrial Revoluution. - the WEF using China as a testbed, perhaps, for rolling out their smart city control system into the world
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WP_Global_ ... t_2018.pdf

July 2020 Bloomberg - The future of Smart Cities

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The concept of 20 minute neighbourhoods and 15 minute cities has reappeared in documents from the Royal Town Planning Institute [RTPI] in Scotland April 2021
https://www.rtpi.org.uk/media/8172/issue-184-final.pdf
Planning for a Post Covid Recovery
March 24 2021
https://www.rtpi.org.uk/research/2021/m ... bourhoods/
Implementing 20 Minute Neighbourhoods in Planning Policy and Practice

The Covid-19 pandemic has had an immediate, and likely a lasting effect, on how we use towns and cities to live, work and play in. 20 minute neighbourhoods are a concept of urban development that has ascended rapidly in the minds of policymakers, politicians and the general public across the world. The basic premise is a model of urban development that creates neighbourhoods where daily services can be accessed within a 20 minute walk.

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a profound and lasting impact across the world. Responding to this unprecedented shock to the social and economic system, the Royal Town Planning Institute sets out in its ‘Plan The World We Need’ campaign, the vital contribution that planning can make toward to a [color-"red"]sustainable, resilient and inclusive recovery[/color]. This includes an accelerated progress to a zero carbon economy, increase resilience to risk, and create fair, healthy and prosperous communities[1]. A planning concept and urban growth model known as the 20 minute neighbourhood, has gained significant traction across the world as a means of supporting this recovery, spurred on in part by the outcomes of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Plan the world we need - June 29 2020
https://www.rtpi.org.uk/research/2020/j ... oc44077174


We can see how "can" be accessed may change to "must be accessed" within a 20 minute walk.


This is an extension of the FIFTEEN MINUTE CITY.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_minute_city

the main promoter is Carlos Moreno whose 2016 concept has been warmed up in 2020/2021 following the "remarkable window of opportunity" provided by Covid-19/ in Smart Cities, Vol 4 pp 93-111
Introducing the “15-Minute City”: Sustainability, Resilience and Place Identity in Future Post-Pandemic Cities

The socio-economic impacts on cities during the COVID-19 pandemic have been brutal, leading to increasing inequalities and record numbers of unemployment around the world. While cities endure lockdowns in order to ensure decent levels of health, the challenges linked to the unfolding of the pandemic have led to the need for a radical re-think of the city, leading to the re-emergence of a concept, initially proposed in 2016 by Carlos Moreno: the “15-Minute City”.

Introducing the “15-Minute City”: Sustainability, Resilience and Place Identity in Future Post-Pandemic Cities

However, the 20 minute neighbourhood had already been discussed in Manchester UK prior to the pandemic scam in November 2019
https://steadystatemanchester.net/2019/ ... bourhoods/
The Future is 20 minutes away? 20-minute neighbourhoods.



The concept was aired much earlier in Portland, Oregon in 2009 -
The Portland Plan
https://cityofmadison.com/Sustainabilit ... nNeigh.pdf

The 15 minute city project is semi-anonymous
https://www.15minutecity.com/about


A whole industry of "planning" and "change" is built upon the engineered shutdowns following the plandemic
giving rise to papers containing such nonsense as this

The COVID-19 virus can linger in the air and on surfaces for extended periods of time.

source -
https://www.archdaily.com/961166/12-key ... g-covid-19
May 5 2021
12 Key Principles for an Effective Urban Response during COVID-19

which was re-tweeted by the 15minute city project..... shake my head.

The #15MinuteCity is one of @UNHabitat’s 12 key principles for an effective urban #COVID response, via @archdaily
#sustainablecities #buildbackbetter

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The WEF's latest 'you'll own nothing and be happy' video is pushing the 15 minute city [see above]


August 17 2021

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/08/ ... y-digital/
August 11 2021
one of the 5 ways the fake pandemic will shape our lives....
The advent of 15 minute spaces you'll never be more than a quarter of an hour from a neighbourhood hub


Sounds wonderful.