The story of the German or Italian outbreak of COVID-19, embedded in links between a peri-urban Wuhan car manufacturer and a factory in suburban Bavaria, or the sudden worldwide popularity of little-known Codogno 60km from Milan, speak volumes to the larger urban realities between well-known cities. Whilst major metropolises are indeed key jumping points for an epidemic outbreak to go global, coronavirus also drove a distinctly broader impact on what we think of urban. And, second, it can drive a serious reform of often tokenistic smart city models towards a stronger digital skeleton for our cities.ĬOVID-19 has already challenged the ‘global city’ model our international system has rested upon for countless centuries. Here I argue this crisis has potentially two lasting effects on urban planning and design: first, it can question some of the essential assumptions of our global urban system and imaginary, and call upon a debate on principles of both design and international organisation of cities. The intersection between epidemic threats and vertiginous rates of urbanisation, with 66% of the world’s population now projected to live in cities by 2050 and major urban centres like London and Melbourne shooting toward 10 million urban dwellers, is perhaps one of the most defining challenge of our time for city-makers of all kinds. The situation is all but changed just six years later. The number of infectious diseases has jumped fourfold since 1980, with a 2013 study identifying over 12,102 outbreaks of 215 diseases and 44 million individual cases worldwide. This tells us that we both need to be more prepared for these types of challenges and that they are likely to continue in the foreseeable future. What is more is that, from an urban planning perspective, they spoke volumes to, for instance, understand the important role of cities in networking disease, impacting those living in disadvantaged realities, and the shared nature of our contemporary global urban system. SARS and H5N1 (2003), H1N1 (2009), MERS (2012), Ebola (2014), Zika (2016), all regularly reminded us of the eventuality we are now living. Will all of this drive a change in the way we plan and govern cities? Cities and urban thinking might be fundamentally affected by the present reality of quarantine, social distancing, and global dis-connection. Easily transmissible, low-mortality rate, the flu-like virus spread across national borders and social strata with little discrimination. SARS-CoV-2, or ‘COVID-19’, is quite a formidable foe. In Paris: You are required to take 7.5 UC quarter (5.0 semester) units.Will COVID-19 Make Us Think of Cities Differently? Students are advised to carefully consult their course syllabi and weekly schedule before making travel plans that could conflict with academic responsibilities. Special circumstances may result in an exceptional course meeting on a Monday or a Friday, and certain activities may take place on a Saturday. Students should expect to be in the classroom or on a required visit Tuesday through Thursday for at least three hours per day and up to six hours per day. In Paris, the upper-division content course meets for a total of thirty-eight hours and the lower-division City and Language course meets for a total of thirty hours. Whether Paris is your first or second city, you will take one upper-division content course worth 4.5 UC quarter (3.0 semester) units, and one lower-division City and Language course worth 3.0 UC quarter (2.0 semester) units during your five-week stay. For the Paris second city quarter program, the program dates are May 4th - June 10th. The program dates for the Paris first city quarter program are March 27th - May 4th. The program is intended as a rewarding experience abroad for students interested in exploring the challenges faced by these exciting and dynamic European capitals. Through their coursework, students will interrogate how the challenges of contemporary urban diversity play out in specific arenas in the global cities of Paris and London, giving them the opportunity to compare and contrast the particularities of how these cities both became and understand themselves as global capitals. It is designed to introduce students to the complex social, political and economic issues brought about by immigration, increasing diversity and urban conflict in London and Paris. The Global Cities Urban Realities Quarter Program is the creation of faculty and administrators at the University of California. The Global Cities Urban Realities Quarter Program
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