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Weekly Urban News Update
August 28, 2020
In This Update
Child Migrants in Addis Ababa Suffer Under COVID-19
China Intensifies Lockdown in Xinjiang Cities Despite Decrease in COVID-19 Cases
The French Government Mandates Face Coverings in Paris
COVID-19 Housing Insecurity Felt More Acutely Along Racial and Ethnic Lines
How Participatory Mapping in African Cities Can Help Close the Digital Gender Gap
In Bogota, Social Housing Project Has Unintended Consequences
In the News And Around the Web
Child Migrants in Addis Ababa Suffer Under COVID-19
COVID-19 has worsened life for Ethiopian children who migrated to cities in search of work after schools closed in March. Approximately 42.7% of Ethiopian children ages 5-17 work, including thousands of boys who work as conductors for minibus depots in Addis Ababa for $2.78 a day. But the boy conductors have struggled to find work since Ethiopia cut bus passenger numbers to contain the virus. Young Lives country director Alula Pankhurst said:" They do not have the luxury of staying at home and reducing activities since these are necessary for survival.” One child migrant explained: “I will stay here until I get [enough] money. Life is better in the countryside. I want to finish school.”

Read more here.
China Intensifies Lockdown in Xinjiang Cities Despite Decrease in COVID-19 Cases
Despite dwindling numbers of locally transmitted COVID-19 cases in Xinjiang, China the country has intensified its containment efforts in the region’s major cities. Chinese officials declared a "wartime" state in the region when dozens of cases broke out in the city of Urumqi in July and deployed thousands of police officers to enforce the lockdown. Anger in Xinjiang is growing as residents are forbidden from leaving their home and many are unable to generate income. Human rights activists have also expressed concerned that China risks repeating critical mistakes made in the Wuhan lockdown when critically ill residents were stuck in their homes and unable to access healthcare. 

Read more here.
The French Government Mandates Face Coverings in Paris
The French government has mandated face coverings in Paris following a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases. This week, France recorded its highest number of new daily infections since the end of its lockdown in early May. The number of “red zones,” designated by officials, or areas in which the virus is in active circulation, has increased from 2 to 21. The face covering measure will apply to pedestrians and cyclists in Paris and surrounding densely populated suburbs, affecting approximately 7 million residents. The Paris police prefecture explained: “The deterioration of the health situation…has led the prefect to take this strong measure in the interest of the population.”

Read more here.
COVID-19 Housing Insecurity Felt More Acutely on Racial and Ethnic Lines
At Enterprise Community Partners, Rachel Bogardus Drew explores which renter households are now at the greatest risk of housing instability. According to Drew, data shows that the pre-pandemic rental cost burden was distributed more evenly across race and ethnicity, while housing security concerns since COVID-19 are more concentrated among renters of color, likely due to the disproportionate impact of job and income losses among people of color during lockdown. The amplification of housing instability across racial and ethnic lines has dire consequences for renter households including food insecurity, poorer health and educational outcomes, and vulnerability to eviction and homelessness.

Read more here.
How Participatory Mapping in African Cities Can Help Close the Digital Gender Gap
The Open Cities Africa project provides insight on closing the digital gender gap, write Mimra Lilian Gupta, Emma Phillips, and Vivien Deparday at the World Bank. Open Cities Africa helps cities prepare for disaster management through community participatory mapping under the premise that residents have on-the-ground insight on which areas need which kind of investment. But the project found that women were often excluded from mapping exercises which could skew emergency response and urban development needs. The project identified lack of education, the time consumption of domestic responsibilities, and security concerns as some of the factors that impeded women’s participation.

Read more here.
In Bogota, Social Housing Project Has Unintended Consequences
Urban planners must consider the unintended consequences of social housing, according to a study on the Plaza de la Hoja project in Bogota, Colombia by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University (JCHS). La Hoja planners aimed to provide mixed-use, transit-oriented development in the city’s most privileged areas to house its poorest residents. But, researchers Maria Atuesta and Diane Davis found that while La Hoja provided housing to those who needed it, it still failed to resolve social and spatial isolation. Furthermore, when businesses and pedestrians were not attracted to the area as anticipated, drug dealers, local gangs, and homeless people came to occupy the space instead. 

Read more here.
In the News and Around the Web

  • Did India Reach Herd Immunity? Thirty percent of the population in Delhi, more than 50% in Pune, and nearly 60% in Mumbai have contracted coronavirus.

  • New Orleans Fears Coronavirus Fallout Worse than Hurricane Katrina: Hurricane Katrina damaged 70% of the city's housing, but during the pandemic, there is no place to evacuate to escape possible harm.

  • The Growth of Cities and Developing Countries: In a VoxDev podcast, economist Ed Glaeser explains why development economists should turn their attention to urban areas.
China has intensified lockdown in the city of Urumqi in its western province Xinjiang. (Sue-Lin Wong/Reuters)
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