Urban Regeneration and Viruses: Learning from Past and Present Health Crises

The COVID-19 pandemic magnified some of humanity’s most pressing challenges, such as the inequitable provision of basic services, infrastructure, and environmental resources, and impeded progress on poverty and inequality reduction. Urban regeneration has been brought forth as a comprehensive process which, through multi-level coordination, could generate wide and interrelated public benefits – physical, social, ecological, and economic –thus advancing post-crisis recovery. 

The report Urban Regeneration and Viruses: Learning from Past and Present Health Crises explores the spatial dimension of recovery measures in pandemics and epidemics. It identifies essential urban planning and governance components to alleviate the negative effects of health crises whilst making urban areas more inclusive and prosperous. The comparative study of urban regeneration case studies in five regions of the world presents valuable learnings to build socioeconomic and environmental resilience on different scales.