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J. Liu
2 Background
Many countries and societies have approximated sustainable development through
reducing carbon emissions, e.g. by applying green technology in transportation and
in industry, reduction in deforestation and in plastic consumption. Yet, the current
COVID-19 pandemic has (repeatedly, if we think of historical pandemics) made it
clear to all of us that health is an important common denominator in any issues or
risks urgently needed to be addressed today, from air pollution to plastic abuse, to
income inequality, to the lack of essential live supporting infrastructure. An overview
of human history tells us that health has always been the ultimate goal of all human
beings and literally speaking all kinds of human collaborations we have come to
devote ourselves to, including the current paradigm to pursue sustainable urban
development, serve to achieve this goal. The global implications of COVID-19 on
all sectors of socio-economic activities have demonstrated clearly that, much of the
sustainable urban development practices are still either siloed, compartmentalized or
too short-term, lacking synergy between one activity to another. Sustainable urban
development needs to go way beyond these segmented actions and to take a more
systemic approach to urban planning, particularly that of public and/or green spaces.
The reasons are the following:
First, the irreversible urbanization trend and increasing urban density. With more
than 50% of the world population living in cities, we are already living on an urban
planet (Bai et al. 2018, p. 462). Yet, urban areas account roughly for only 3% of
the earth’s surface (Ryan 2014; Liu et al. 2014). With increasing urbanization come
several consequences. Urban areas where the majority of the population inhabit today
are increasingly dense. The dense population implies increasing condensation of
artificial infrastructure including transportation, housing, commercial, sanitation and
other services; it also means a drastic reduction in ecological or green infrastructure
such as parks, ecological corridors, wetlands, lawns, and other natural landscapes.
For most of human history, populations had lived within small-scale and low-density
social groups; urbanization is a trend unique to the past few centuries (Ryan 2019;
Ritchie and Roser 2020).
The particular high mortality rate among the African American communities across US cities during COVID-19 has shown how dense living environments and the implied underprivileged socio-economic conditions are jeopardizing human health. African Americans have denser and older housing in
many cities in the United States owing to the historical legacy of “redlining”, a zoning policy made by the Federal Housing Administration to demarcate African American neighbourhoods initially to support affordable housing
but ended up as a barrier to housing mortgages (Gross 2017; Vock et al.
2019). An example of the COVID-19 impact hitting these communities particularly hard: African Americans in Louisiana make up 70% of the COVID-19
deaths in all known coronavirus patients in the state, while only representing about
32% of the population (Turk 2020).
J. Liu
2 Background
Many countries and societies have approximated sustainable development through
reducing carbon emissions, e.g. by applying green technology in transportation and
in industry, reduction in deforestation and in plastic consumption. Yet, the current
COVID-19 pandemic has (repeatedly, if we think of historical pandemics) made it
clear to all of us that health is an important common denominator in any issues or
risks urgently needed to be addressed today, from air pollution to plastic abuse, to
income inequality, to the lack of essential live supporting infrastructure. An overview
of human history tells us that health has always been the ultimate goal of all human
beings and literally speaking all kinds of human collaborations we have come to
devote ourselves to, including the current paradigm to pursue sustainable urban
development, serve to achieve this goal. The global implications of COVID-19 on
all sectors of socio-economic activities have demonstrated clearly that, much of the
sustainable urban development practices are still either siloed, compartmentalized or
too short-term, lacking synergy between one activity to another. Sustainable urban
development needs to go way beyond these segmented actions and to take a more
systemic approach to urban planning, particularly that of public and/or green spaces.
The reasons are the following:
First, the irreversible urbanization trend and increasing urban density. With more
than 50% of the world population living in cities, we are already living on an urban
planet (Bai et al. 2018, p. 462). Yet, urban areas account roughly for only 3% of
the earth’s surface (Ryan 2014; Liu et al. 2014). With increasing urbanization come
several consequences. Urban areas where the majority of the population inhabit today
are increasingly dense. The dense population implies increasing condensation of
artificial infrastructure including transportation, housing, commercial, sanitation and
other services; it also means a drastic reduction in ecological or green infrastructure
such as parks, ecological corridors, wetlands, lawns, and other natural landscapes.
For most of human history, populations had lived within small-scale and low-density
social groups; urbanization is a trend unique to the past few centuries (Ryan 2019;
Ritchie and Roser 2020).
The particular high mortality rate among the African American communities across US cities during COVID-19 has shown how dense living environments and the implied underprivileged socio-economic conditions are jeopardizing human health. African Americans have denser and older housing in
many cities in the United States owing to the historical legacy of “redlining”, a zoning policy made by the Federal Housing Administration to demarcate African American neighbourhoods initially to support affordable housing
but ended up as a barrier to housing mortgages (Gross 2017; Vock et al.
2019). An example of the COVID-19 impact hitting these communities particularly hard: African Americans in Louisiana make up 70% of the COVID-19
deaths in all known coronavirus patients in the state, while only representing about
32% of the population (Turk 2020).