Urban and Regional Planning During and Post Covid-19

Challenges, Opportunities and Lessons

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to discuss the challenges, opportunities and lessons for town planners in the pre and post COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Review method was adopted by using literatures, internet and available documents. The impact of the global pandemic is still gloomy but may affect the cities physically, economically, socially now and future generations. Official town planning process began in Nigeria following several public health legislations as such some states used the colonial public health regulations like Quarantine Act of 1926 and the public Health Law of 1917 in addressing COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Broader thinking points of opportunities for Pre and post-COVID 19 recovery of human interaction and city life include; focusing on sustainable goals, multi-functional places design, planning urban realm at a local level, supporting human connectivity and delegation of decision. Planning challenges influenced by COVID-19 are; cities densities, informal settlements, housing and public spaces, city-regional planning, social infrastructure provision and future defensive designs. The  lessons for urban governance include; unique thinking about cities and health,  global urban governance systems;  addressing informal settlement inequality, regular update of crisis-information, public-health digital change promoting teleworking and web-based community.  Rethink of urban planning require shift from top-down to bottom-up approach, capacity building and full implementation of relevant laws. The paper recommends that, the Pandemic responses should be buttressed by an urban-planning system equipped with adequate data on the population densities, households, vulnerable areas, social centres functional sanitation facilities and physical infrastructure.