Cities learning from a pandemic: towards preparedness

"COVID-19 has stressed the condition of radical uncertainty that increasingly characterises our times and compels cities to learn new ways to cope with unexpected global urban challenges. The volume proposes preparedness as a key concept in urban geography, planning, and policy, inviting international scholars to discuss its pros and cons. Firstly, it builds a critical theoretical framework around the concept of preparedness in relation to the COVID-19 effects and other interconnected crises. Then, the authors put at work and redefine preparedness, starting from worldwide surveys, research experiences, public discourses and spatial strategies analysis in Europe and, more extensively, in Italy. Finally, the closing section goes beyond the view of preparedness as an emergency tool, proposing to interpret it more broadly as a technology supporting a sustainable urban transition. The book mainly targets academics in urban planning, policy, and geography. However, the prominence of the topic of preparedness makes the volume an essential reading not only within social sciences but further in engineering, basic sciences, and life science. In addition, the book provides directions to practitioners and civic leaders in supporting cities and regions to prepare themselves in the face of pandemics and unpredictable socio-environmental shocks"--

"COVID-19 has stressed the condition of radical uncertainty that increasingly characterises our times and compels cities to learn new ways to cope with unexpected global urban challenges. The volume proposes preparedness as a key concept in urban geography, planning, and policy, inviting international scholars to discuss its pros and cons. Firstly, it builds a critical theoretical framework around the concept of preparedness in relation to the COVID-19 effects and other interconnected crises. Then, the authors put at work and redefine preparedness, starting from worldwide surveys, research experiences, public discourses and spatial strategies analysis in Europe and, more extensively, in Italy. Finally, the closing section goes beyond the view of preparedness as an emergency tool, proposing to interpret it more broadly as a technology supporting a sustainable urban transition. The book mainly targets academics in urban planning, policy, and geography. However, the prominence of the topic of preparedness makes the volume an essential reading not only within social sciences but further in engineering, basic sciences, and life science. In addition, the book provides directions to practitioners and civic leaders in supporting cities and regions to prepare themselves in the face of pandemics and unpredictable socio-environmental shocks"--

Cover -- Half Title -- Series -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of figures -- List of contributors -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Introduction -- Part I Interpretations: a theoretical framework and emerging territorial issues -- 2 The key of preparedness -- 3 Supporting urban planning to stay with uncertainty: preparedness, care, and antifragility -- 4 Preparedness as a technology of the imagination: interview with Andrew Lakoff and Frédéric Keck -- 5 Spatial strategies for getting ready? The weak linkage amid preparedness and urban policy -- Part II Observations: experiences of (un)preparedness in Europe -- 6 What future for European cities after COVID-19? An international survey -- 7 Analysis of Madrid's urban policies in the period 2020-2021: towards a more resilient post-coronavirus capital? -- 8 The impacts of the sanitary crisis on the French urban areas and their likely effects on urban policies -- 9 COVID-19 in the Lombardy region: socio-spatial peripheries and forgotten densities of long-term care -- 10 Urban and manufacturing after the pandemic, preparing a new ground for the productive city -- 11 Distributing, desynchronising, digitalising: towards a new mobile urbanity in the COVID-19 era -- 12 Changing uses in public spaces: dehors' supporting measures in Italy in COVID-19 times -- 13 Housing as a basic infrastructure against risks: the case of COVID-19 housing support measures in Greece -- 14 Governing pandemics at the local level: the case of COVID-19 in Albania -- 15 Schools and cities: spaces for solutions -- 16 Access to essential services: migrants' landing during lockdown -- 17 Urban peripheries after COVID-19 in Italy -- 18 Afterword: preparedness supporting the transition -- Index.