Strategies for Post-COVID Cities: An Insight to Paris En Commun and Milano 2020

Abstract

In recent times, many infectious diseases have been spreading at an increasing scale and frequency. There is a common agreement in the literature that our cities should be prepared in the future to react promptly to epidemics, but the way in which this preparedness should be shaped is still an open question. This study aims to introduce a series of factors that should be taken into consideration in building a working framework to define and evaluate strategies for post-COVID cities. Through the use of the mutual learning methodology, this contribution draws on the concept of the epidemic prevention area (EPA) proposed by a research team at the School of Architecture, Southeast University (SEU) in China together with the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Resource Management, as an urban responding system to the COVID-19 epidemic, extracting its main factors and comparing them with two European post-COVID urban strategies: The Paris en Commun and Milano 2020. Research findings highlight that three factors—decentralization of facilities, hierarchization of the transport system and public services, and redundancy of public and semipublic functions—appeared to be particularly relevant in post-COVID cities, to promptly face future epidemic events, while improving their quality, equity, and resilience.