Events

The lockdowns have lead us to adapt to some rather unimaginable scenes in some of the world’s major cities. Officials are harnessing networks and tools devised for responding to better-known risks like climate change to tackle the Covid-19 crisis. The crisis is paving the way for more futuristic cities, resilient to future pandemics. Green travel solutions have also been at the heart of many cities’ plans to rebuild. In early 2018, parched by a severe drought, Cape Town rallied its residents and businesses to slash water use and stop its taps running dry. Now, lessons from the water crisis are helping the South African city respond to the coronavirus pandemic. Megaphones are being used in communities with limited online access to make residents aware of the need for social distancing and good hygiene, just as they were deployed during the drought to encourage people to conserve water. Videos on the city’s social media channels honour frontline workers in the COVID-19 crisis and urge efforts to deal with it together – messages similar to those applauding water-saving efforts two to three years ago. And networks set up to engage businesses in a joint push to use water efficiently have been resuscitated to help them safely continue operations while containing Covid-19. Gareth Morgan, Cape Town’s director of resilience, said the city of about 4.6 million people was benefiting from what he called “crisis muscle memory”. Many of the same planners who worked on the drought response are now dealing with COVID-19 and using similar tools, such as building an index to show who is most vulnerable and developing a dashboard of metrics to track the situation. “It is not uncommon for our city team members to regularly say in our planning meetings that we learned something during the drought and we should be cognisant […]