“Let’s not go back to normal because normal wasn’t working,” said Diana Urge-Vorsaltz, Professor at the Central European University of Budapest, Hungary. That is why cities’ plans to recover and rebuild from COVID-19 must strive to address long-standing vulnerabilities and go beyond addressing the health impacts of COVID-19 to tackle the persistent inequalities that the poor and vulnerable contend with. Cities host 60 percent of refugees and up to 80 percent of internally displaced people.Cities are especially vulnerable to climate shocks and natural disasters.Cities produce 70 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the UN.One billion people worldwide live in slums, making social distancing and handwashing difficult.“What COVID-19 did was make the problems visible to those who are not working in local government,” said Anuela Ristani, Deputy Mayor of Tirana, Albania.įor cities, this could be a pivotal moment where crisis is turned into opportunity. “It is actually worth putting even more emphasis on sustainability issues than before,” he said at a recent World Bank event. “One of the biggest lessons learned from the COVID-19 crisis is that sustainable, resilient cities were able to handle the pandemic better," said Jan Vapaavuori, the Mayor of Helsinki, underscoring how it had revealed more than it changed, and given city leaders a better understanding of their cities’ attributes and strengths.
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