CAN INCLUSIVE CITIES PREVENT THE NEXT PANDEMIC?

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13 https://doi.org/doi/10.54030/2788-564X/2022/cp1v2a4 | e-ISSN 2788-564X

Journal of Inclusive cities and Built environment. Vol. 2 Issue 1, Pg. 13-16

Published by the University of KwaZulu-Natal https://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/JICBE

Journal of Inclusive cities and Built environment. Vol. 2 Issue 1

How to cite: T. Osayomi. 2022. Can Inclusive cities prevent the next pandemic?: (Re) Emerging diseases in the context of rural-urban linkages.

Conference Proceedings for International Symposium on Inclusive-Cities: Achieving Inclusive Cities Through A Multidisciplinary Approach, 2021 28-30 June. Journal of Inclusive cities and Built environment. Vol. 2 Issue 1, Pg 13-16.

Published 31 January 2022

Tolulope Osayomi: Department of Geography, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.

Published

By T. Osayomi

CAN INCLUSIVE CITIES PREVENT THE NEXT PANDEMIC?:

(RE) EMERGING DISEASES IN THE CONTEXT OF RURAL-URBAN LINKAGES

ABSTRACT

History has obviously shown the mutual relationship between cities and disease outbreaks; how one reshapes or redefines the other and vice versa. The pandemic has amplified a multitude of existing and persistent developmental challenges humanity has been contending with at different scales and magnitude in different parts of the world. Putting to context the disease burden across space (as in the recent pandemic), this study suggests that cities do not exist in isolation; they mutually interact with rural areas for sustenance and livelihoods. This reciprocal relationship is not just critical to the growth and survival of cities but also to disease transmission as it will discussed shortly. Therefore, the paper attempts to address the question of how do pandemics create inclusive cities and how do inclusive cities in turn make or break pandemics? In answering this, the argument of how rural–urban linkages will increase the risk of emerging diseases and can make inclusive cities a far dream was forwarded.

KEY WORDS Emerging Diseases; Pandemic; Inclusive; Rural-urban interactions

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1. INTRODUCTION

The COVID-19 pandemic has come to be known as the worst public health crisis of the century. The pandemic has amplified a multitude of existing and persistent developmental challenges humanity has been contending with at different scales and magnitude in different parts of the world. In addition, it consistently coerces us to question our knowledge systems, lifestyles and even our human existence. Since the onset of the pandemic, the world has significantly shifted from being socially compact to socially distant (Osayomi et al. 2021).

The hard lessons learnt have no doubt initiated a series of conversations on the future of our human existence. Among the countless and ever increasing exchanges, the United Nations (UN) and The United Nations-Habitat (UN- HABITAT) published two documents:

COVID-19 in an Urban World and Cities and Pandemic: Towards a More Just Green and Healthy Future respectively.

These two publications underscore the centrality of urban areas in pandemics such as the one with which the world is presently faced. They both clearly pointed out that urban settlements across the world, in their vulnerable state, are bearing the brunt of this global health emergency as well as intensifying the spatial diffusion of the novel virus.

Therefore, the cities and other urban areas are not just the targets but also super spreaders of pandemics. The implication of this is that urban areas, given their prime position, are not just makers but can also serve as pandemic breakers. For the world to recover quickly and to prevent future global disease outbreaks, “more resilient, inclusive and sustainable cities” are required.

History has obviously shown the mutual relationship between cities and disease outbreaks; how one reshapes or redefines the other and vice versa.

There are instances such as Great Britain (Howe, 1972, United Nations, 2020), to buttress this point. Despite the significant progress achieved in disease control and urban transformations over the centuries, the outbreak of emerging and re-emerging diseases have not been successfully prevented. It is pertinent to note that (re) emerging diseases, which are mainly zoonotic in nature, arise from the frequent human contact with animal vectors (Malanson, 2020) lurking in

previously pristine natural environment.

According to Ashton (2020:123), “[r]

apid urbanisation with incursion into jungle and wilderness bring exposure to unfamiliar organisms often involving consumption of exotic wildlife species…”

It is on this premise that this chapter poses the thought provoking question:

will the quest for inclusive cities in the new normal- especially in the recovery process- prevent the next pandemic?

Unfortunately, this enquiry may not be successful without situating it within the context of rural-urban linkages.

Incidentally, these publications examined the relative position of cities in regional systems and their interactions with lower order settlements particularly rural areas.

This of course suggests that cities do not exist in isolation; they mutually interact with rural areas for sustenance and livelihoods. This reciprocal relationship is not just critical to the growth and survival of cities but also to disease transmission as it will discussed shortly.

In specific terms, the paper shall attempt to address the following: First, how do pandemics create inclusive cities and how do inclusive cities in turn make or break inclusive pandemics? Finally, how will rural–urban linkages will increase the risk of emerging diseases and can make inclusive cities a far dream? This rest of this chapter is organised as follows:

the first section focuses on the quest for inclusive cities from the perspective of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

2. INCLUSIVE CITIES, SUSTAINABLE

DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND THE NEW NORMAL

In 2015, world leaders at New York, USA rolled out a list of seventeen global goals famously known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the expiration of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The eleventh goal: “ [m]ake cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” was directed at the growth and health sustainable human settlements. Currently, more than 50 percent of the world population live in urban areas. Given the demographic weight, it therefore clearly suggests that cities will play a pivotal role in the attainment of the SDGs (Krug et al. 2019) because they are often believed to have the resources and the political will to

effect positive changes. Moreover, cities are the drivers of economic prosperity;

they account for 80 percent of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (World Bank 2019, United Nations, 2020). This truly emphasises the fact that they are the nucleus of the global economy.

Unfortunately, cities are faced with stark socio-spatial inequalities in access to societal resources (United Nations, 2020) which arise from the racial/cultural, economic, demographic and geographical heterogeneity that characterise urban spaces. The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified these fault lines. Currently, urban areas are the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic because 90 percent of reported COVID-19 cases are found there and it is attributable to their large population size, global and local linkages which put them at great risk (United Nations, 2021). This clearly shows that COVID-19 is a major urban health crisis.

New York (New York State Department of Health, 2020) and Lagos (Okafor and Osayomi, 2021) are two cases in point.

This raises a question though it is not within the scope of this chapter: will COVID-19 shorten or prolong humanity’s race to 2030- the sustainable future?

If these urban inequalities constantly widen, SDG 11 among other goals will not be achievable. Therefore, reducing these urban inequalities is central to the inclusive and sustainable urban future we desire.

No doubt, the quest for inclusive cities is more real than ever. Now that, inclusive urban development can help reduce or cushion the effects of this current pandemic and futures. What is an inclusive city? According to the UN- Habitat (n.d):

“It is a place where everyone, regardless of their economic means, gender, race, ethnicity or religion, is enabled and empowered to fully participate in the social, economic and political opportunities that cities have to offer.”

Another interesting definition proffered by Women in Informal Employment:

Globalising and Organising (WIEGO):

“…those that ensure all residents – including the urban working poor – have a representative voice in governance, planning, and budgeting processes.

Inclusive cities ensure the working poor have access to secure and dignified

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BY T. OSAYOMI CAN INCLUSIVE CITIES PREVENT THE NEXT PANDEMIC?: (RE) EMERGING DISEASES IN THE CONTEXT OF RURAL-URBAN LINKAGES.

15 livelihoods, affordable housing, and

basic services such as water/sanitation and electricity supply.” The former definition connotes equal representation of all segments of society in the decision- making process and equal access to all opportunities for human advancement while the latter indicates that beyond equal representation and access, there is a deliberate attempt to favour socially disadvantaged populations in the distribution of opportunities which is best termed as a “policy of positive discrimination”. Thus, the notion of the inclusive city is an attempt at socio- spatial engineering of urban areas and hopefully serve as an antidote to the sharp social and spatial inequalities that pervade cities of the world.

Presently, cities are at the receiving end of recent waves of internal and international migration. These events are significantly changing the cultural composition of cities which have now become “arrival cities” of many immigrant communities (Zhuang, 2018).

They therefore are important in the settlement and societal integration of immigrants in the destination country in the long run. However, these processes also present their challenges. In response to the rising trend of voluntary and forced immigrants across the world, there have been both silent and vocal expressions of xenophobia in some of these arrival cities. Long before now, issues of social and racial injustice are more widespread among non- migrant communities. For instance, the

#BlackLivesMatter Movement protests in the United States following the arrest and tragic death of George Floyd in 2020 speak to these racial inequalities. These hostilities certainly hinders the growth and evolution of inclusive cities. Little wonder why Zhuang (2018:1) thinks “…

an ethno-culturally diverse population does not necessarily lead to diverse, inclusive and resilient communities”.

Though racial/ethnic diversity has its numerous benefits such as creativity, innovation, healthy rivalry etc, can it still foster inclusive communities in the new normal?

3. SITUATING (RE)

EMERGING DISEASES IN THE CONTEXT OF RURAL-URBAN LINKAGES

In the course of human history, numerous infectious diseases many of which are zoonotic such as Spanish Flu, Ebola, COVID-19, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), Zika, Swine and Avian influenza have emerged and re- emerged. Emerging diseases refer to new infections that have surfaced in a human population with no previous history or outbreak while re-emerging diseases are those whose incidence/

outbreak in a given territory had been recorded in the past and its prevention/

management was successful but re- emerged in the future affecting possibly a larger proportion of the human population. Based on the foregoing, what makes a disease a re- or emerging is simply a question of previous outbreak history and geographical context.

More importantly, their emergence is a product of a web of interactions between humans and the physical environment (Malanson, 2020). The rate and degree of their diffusion across geographical areas, defines the magnitude and scale of infection. One possible channel of diffusion has not received sufficient attention is rural-urban linkages.

As we are all aware, cities are not isolated entities in geographic space.

They are a part of a wider and regional network of human settlements which strongly suggests a mutual and dynamic interaction between them and rural areas. This reality certainly faults the once dominant thought of rural and urban areas as spatial binaries. In other words, it denies the existence of a dynamic relationship between the two. Rural-urban linkages refers to the frequent exchange of people, material, technological and social resources between the urban and rural areas (Taccoli, 1988; Mayer et al 2016).

It is a symbiotic relationship among human settlements. This explains why Tostensen (2004) insists why “rural and urban cannot be treated as a sharp dichotomy of discrete spheres” Much more, it is indeed a form of spatial interaction or rather a socio-spatial process which holds significant potential in driving regional development of a territory. Put differently, rural-urban

linkages are arteries/channels of regional development through which people, goods, services, innovation flow.

However, much of the discourse on rural-urban interaction for decades is largely skewed towards economic activities. Each of them sees the other as its market or source of income. The urban areas facilitate the extraction and exploitation in the rural areas while the rural areas enables industrial activities in the urban areas (Tostensen, 2004).

In summary, they are dependent on one another for existence. This paper argues that rural-urban linkages are potentially strong channels of disease transmission and has implications for the formation of inclusive cities and pandemics. As previously mentioned in the introductory section, (re)emerging diseases arise from the frequent contact between humans and animal habitats in natural environment. In other words, emerging diseases are a result of significant environmental changes induced by anthropogenic activities.

One of these significant changes is agricultural expansion. To meet the increasing demand for food across the world particularly in urban areas, land clearance for agricultural expansion and intensification closes the gap between humans and animal habitats (Rohr et al. 2019). The pertinent question is where are these animal habitats? The lockdown episodes of 2020 underscored the significance of this question. Many would recall several news reports of wild animals freely roaming the deserted streets of cities across the world. No doubt, these animal habitats are in the forest which are relatively near rural areas. In the bid to increase food supplies, wild animals (popularly called bush meat in some parts of the world) are caught dead or alive and sold off in wet markets, like the one seen in the city of Wuhan, China. If any of these animals are a vector of a novel disease agent, the risk of a disease outbreak is very high especially in areas of high population concentration.

Based on the foregoing, the question is can inclusive cities prevent the next pandemic? Inclusive cities in the first place seem impossible to achieve given the present circumstances humanity is contending with. Cities occupy a key position in not only in the global economy but also in planetary health. They also exist in a network of interdependence.

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Tostensen, A. (2004) Rural-urban linkages in Sub-Saharan Africa:

Contemporary debates and implications for Kenyan urban workers in the 21st century. CMI Working Papers.

UNHABITAT (n.d.) Inclusive Cities – The Way Forward http://mirror.unhabitat.

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Zhuang, Z. (2018). Toronto: Planning for Diversity, Inclusion and Urban Resilience. URL: http://citiesofmigration.

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