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Weekly Urban News Update
October 30, 2020
In This Update
Drought in Bulawayo Forces Poor Residents to Rely on Unprotected Water
COVID-19 Trade Restrictions Devastate Africa's Urban Poor
In Yangon, Widespread Food Insecurity Accompanies a Second Lockdown
Shelter Crisis in Beirut Predates Port Explosion and Mass Displacement
Lisbon Sees Opportunity in Pandemic to Reclaim Affordable Rental Housing
India Launches Project to Help Its Cities Vulnerable to Climate Change
IHC Global Hosts Event on People-Centered and Gender-Sensitive Smart Cities
In the News And Around the Web
Drought in Bulawayo Forces Residents to Rely on Unprotected Water
Drought has dried up reservoirs in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, forcing residents to turn to unprotected and contaminated water sources. Wealthier residents can dig their own boreholes and install water pumps, but poorer residents must stand in line for hours with hundreds of other people to access water. Women have also reported abuse and harassment at water points and from people manning the pumps. Bulawayo Health Services Director Edwin Sibanda confirmed the outbreak of waterborne diseases is worsening the city’s COVID-19 crisis. Sibanda observes: “The precautions for diarrhea are the same as those for COVID-19. How do you tell people to wash hands when there is no water?”

Read more here.
COVID-19 Trade Restrictions Devastate Africa's Urban Poor
Trade restrictions as part of COVID-19 containment efforts are devastating Africa’s urban poor, write Astrid R.N. Haas and Victoria Delbridge at The Conversation. In Africa, evidence shows that trading restrictions on large, small, formal, and informal firms has produced widespread loss of livelihood. During the lockdown, most small-scale trader firms in Lagos reported zero revenue, while in Kampala, poverty spiked, as experts say lockdown in Uganda reversed ten years of poverty reduction gains. The authors urge the international community to rethink global pandemic containment standards and instead consider guidelines that allow for targeted, data-driven, flexible, and localized approaches. 

Read more here.
In Yangon, Widespread Food Insecurity Accompanies a Second Lockdown
In September, Myanmar, locked down its capital city Yangon for a second time, amid one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in Southeast Asia, . The city’s informal laborers, garment workers, and tourism employees are now out of work, facing severe food insecurity, and struggling to access government support. In April, a survey of 2,000 people across Myanmar found that 70% of respondents were unable to work and 25% had applied for loans for food, medicine, and supplies. The government has provided poor households with a one-time food package and three cash grants of $15 each, but this has not been enough for the millions of people affected by the pandemic and lockdown.

Read more here.
Shelter Crisis in Beirut Predates Port Explosion and Mass Displacement
In the aftermath of the Beirut port explosion, the shelter recovery sector has focused on providing temporary shelter to 300,000 displaced families and repairing 70,000 damaged and destroyed homes. But, UN-Habitat believes this is insufficient to resolve Beirut’s long-standing housing crisis in which pre-existing rental conditions have made housing largely unaffordable while tenure insecurity impedes the ability of residents displaced by the explosion to return to home. UN-Habitat urges the wider humanitarian community to join it in ensuring an inclusive build-back-better approach that will protect the housing and tenure rights of all residents including the most vulnerable.

Read more here.
Lisbon Sees Opportunity in Pandemic to Reclaim Affordable Rental Housing
European cities are taking advantage of reduced tourism to curb the growth of short-term rentals seen as responsible for rising housing prices such as Airbnb. Lisbon has begun to sign five-year leases for empty short-term rental apartments and turn the units into subsidized housing. Lisbon Mayor Fernando Medina says: “We entered the pandemic with a huge pressure on our housing market, and we cannot afford to exit the pandemic with the same set of problems.” The COVID-19 lockdown restrictions added further housing inequities in the Portuguese capital. Urban geographer Luis Mendes observes: “How can you quarantine if you don’t have a decent housing?”

Read more here.
India Launches Project to Help Its Cities Vulnerable to Climate Change
India launched a project to help its flood prone cities improve infrastructure and build resilience to growing climate risks. The National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) Climate Centre for Cities is working with the national housing and urban affairs ministry to lead trainings for city planners and municipal officials based on its Climate Smart Cities Assessment Framework. Unplanned and unmanaged urbanization has exacerbated the effects of climate change in India's cities. Damodara Sivanada Pai of the India Meteorological Department explains: “Earlier the rain would be absorbed in the soil. Now are drains are choked. Because of urbanization, the impact [of the rainfall] is more.”

Read more here.
IHC Global Blog Reports on Successful Urban Thinkers Campus
A new IHC Global blog reports the results from its first-ever Urban Thinkers Campus on: “The Promise of Smart Cities for post-COVID-19 System Change.” Drawing one expert insight and audience engagement, the two-part event tackled the difficult issues involved in making a smart city truly inclusive.

Access the latest blog, event recordings, and panelist presentations here.
This Week in Photos

  • Cities and Contagion: The University of Pennsylvania Institute for Urban Research published the winning and finalist photos from its "Cities and Contagion" photo contest.
In the News and Around the Web

  • Snakes and Sewage in South Africa Townships: Residents of low-income housing in Soweto constructed next to wetlands say their government-subsidized homes are falling apart.

  • Homeless People in the United States Face Additional Voting Challenges: Voting registration forms require a home or mailing address.

  • World Cities Day: UN-Habitat will release its 2020 World Cities Report tomorrow on World Cities Day.

  • Why Secondary Cities Matter: A blog by the Wilson Center New Security Beat explains the importance of secondary cities for economic growth and resilience.
A cleaner in Dhaka sprays disinfectant in the Farmgate street market.
A Cities and Contagion Photo Contest Runner-Up
(Photo Credit: Mithail Afrige Chowdhury)
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