New normal for the post pandemic city

Two images of the post pandemic city have emerged. One is the urban planner’s utopia of widened sidewalks, pedestrianized boulevards, more neighborhood parks and dedicated bicycle lanes. The other is a dystopia of empty streets and boarded-up shops, and a barren landscape in which the diversity, energy and pageantry of urban life have been replaced […]

Urban planning in MM – where did we go wrong?

While living in Metro Manila offers economic opportunities, its districts, where people live in close proximity, have particularly enabled the fast spread of disease. Correct urban planning may help ‘cure’ Metro Manila’s vulnerability. Urban planning and design experts have long said that Metro Manila was an “incubus of viral plague.” It was a brutally honest […]

Dwelling Density & the COVID Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the poor the hardest and further exposed the gaping inequalities in access to health care, food, and housing. The government has been enforcing lockdowns and curfews with little thought to mitigating the impact on the most vulnerable. Shacks no bigger than a bus waiting shed accommodate several families whose members […]