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Cities must prepare for a new post-pandemic normal

Global Resilient Cities Network

The COVID-19 pandemic has called our society and way of life into crisis. Experts claim that social distancing is the best and only alternative to stop the virus from spreading since there is no vaccine available yet. Governments, the economy, and human relations have been shaken, and the population is waiting for all of this to end in order to go back to normal. However, there is no going back to how we used to live, and we should start preparing for a new post-pandemic normal.

The pandemic has brought a crisis to our everyday lives. The implementation of social distancing measures and control mechanisms to ensure their compliance has unchained a series of public policies, as well as personal and collective actions that have put certain oddities of our society, government, and economy into evidence, all of which should be rethought. This is necessary in order to prepare us for the next emergency that may arise, whether it is a global sanitary crisis or any minor scale event, and for when we go back to normal after this pandemic is over, which could take weeks or even months.

The pandemic has affected our cities in different ways, paralyzing some economic sectors, and cutting social ties. On one hand, hundreds of events have been postponed, like festivals, fairs, sporting events, and private parties. On the other hand, the economy is almost paralyzed, with some essential sectors working with reduced hours, others learning how to function online, other more robust business hanging on and living off of financial reserves, and the fourth group of the informal or partially formal economy, which is frozen or functions somewhat illegally and with no protection whatsoever, mainly in the outskirts of the cities, where they are less visible to authorities. The dilemma is clear, at a government and economic level, and even at a family level: health versus economy, the possibility — remote or not — to contract a disease versus the need to make ends meet.

Nobody knows exactly what will come, how life will be in one month, six months, or a year. Everyone is expecting “all of this to pass” in order to go back to normal. But we must accept that we won’t go back to living like we used to. More importantly, we should not allow ourselves to live like before because, if we did, it would mean that we haven’t learned anything from this pandemic which has paralyzed the entire world. The emergency will pass, and we will slowly get back to our daily activities and our obligations, following the experts’ recommendations. As a health professional recently said, “faucets will be opening”, referring to who will be allowed to go out and restart their activities, and when. But without a doubt, what is coming will be a “new normal”, of uncertain features, for which we must prepare to start today, during the emergency.

 

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