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The New Urban Normal
Recommendations National Governments a.
A crucial point was discussed during the debate: mobility.
in addition to the all problems that have been mentioned during the session, which have to do with water and sanitation one dimension has been missing, and that is transport and mobility. When the further transmission of the disease is not happening , we need to understand why this is the case. It might have to do with the fact that people are not moving. In work and research on mobility, poverty and urban planning, it has been noticed that there is a relation between movement and wealth. People who are not moving are either very rich or very poor. For example, with a decent formal job, with good internet connections, you could work from home during the pandemic. So either you’re you’re very privileged because you’ve got all these endowments or you’re extremely poor. And what happens is to get out of poverty, you need to move. You need to trade. You need to sell your labor force. You need to go on an acquired training. You kids need to go to school. You need to go on and get health services. These are rarely decentralized in a way that they’re local. So mobility or transport need to be included in these discussions. That’s crucial because if you look at public transport systems in London, the underground has literally come to a halt, and now it carries only about 15 percent of the capacity. And the same goes in Latin America, which have not fantastic but decent mass transit systems. But the capacity cannot go above 35 percent because the infection rate might go up. So not being able to move is disastrous. And that’s what we have to think about. And that’s where the next inflection of a curve is. How do we get people to move and interact again? The vast majority of people in cities, depending on which regions you’re talking about, have to move, have to trade, have to go physically to places to receive an income. b. Policies: urban planning policies, land use and other policies need to take into consideration the following aspects: i. Land-use changes that increase land take for human activities create additional risks for the emergence of zoonosis ii. Urban agriculture policies can mitigate the current unhealthy practices in urban agriculture that emerged because of a lacking legal framework. Decent policies also need to ensure healthy sanitary conditions. iii. Urban policies should reconnect with their historical roots in public health concern iv. Informal actors need to be acknowledged as partners in governance practices
