Shaping Urban Resilience in the Wake of COVID-19

Abstract

This study highlights how the Covid-19 pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in urban systems, necessitating the adoption of resilience measures to mitigate socio-economic disruptions and enhance the cities' ability to withstand future shocks. This study aims to evaluate the socioeconomic impacts of Covid-19 on two cities by fostering a composite index for urban resilience and socio-economic indicators. This study contains four sub-indices for economic, social, environment and utility aspects. For this purpose, separate sub-indices are being planned for economic, social, environment and utility dimensions and these sub-indices are built to figure out a composite list for measuring the impacts of Covid-19. In addition, this study utilizes a broad data to appraise the condition of the twin cities from 2020 to onward in Pakistan. A sample size of 349 people was selected and it includes 79 people from unplanned area and 270 people in unplanned areas of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. This study has utilized the index-construction methodology and then the min-max method is being used for normalizing the data. Afterwards, the selected variables are weighted by the application of principal component analysis. Lastly, all the weighted factors are collected to shape up the required indices. In addition, selected areas were positioned in light of their score got in every one of the four dimensions as well as for the composite index. The findings are the rate of Coronavirus cases in the area appears to be higher in unplanned areas with a low rate of Coronavirus cases, while planned areas with a high rate of Coronavirus cases had the lowest number of cases. There are mixed outcomes for social maintainability. This study suggests enhancements in economic as well as social aspects of Covid-19 while keeping up with the urban resilience standards.