The New Boulevards and Sewers

Context: Time to imagine the boulevards and sewers that will emerge at the end of the pandemic.

 A case of city rebuild after the Cholera pandemic: Rebuild of Paris city in the mid-19th century

• Building boulevards: To let in sunlight, which was considered as an antidote to cholera.
  • Boulevards were later rebuilt in other places like Delhi by Lutyen, Cairo by Khedive Ismail etc.
• Building of modern sewage system: To starve off next cholera outbreak.

Some outcomes of the COVID 19 pandemic

• Dealing with the pandemic:  While global political machinery was challenged, scientific machinery was successful. E.g. Developed vaccine within a year (usually takes five years)
• Economic impact: World economy: Expected to shrink by 4.4 % and Indian Economy shrank 24 % in the second quarter of 2020.
  • Growth of the global e-commerce market. (due to increased online shopping).
• Digitalisation:  Weddings, birthdays, goodbyes and office meetings  and schooling moved online
• Exposed the existing societal framework: Impacts of the pandemic was felt disproportionately by poor, having fewer assets, are of the wrong caste or race or ethnic group and working in low paid jobs
  • Impact is further maximised when as they also become digitally disadvantaged.

Way to deal with the post-pandemic situation:

• Reinforcement of the remarkable scientific feat in rolling out vaccine: Mimicking the vaccine creation in developing collective inventiveness between scientists around the world.
• Rebuild:
  • The digital edifice which has become a home, office, school and life. (At present, the edifice is operated by a handful of very powerful and dominant companies).
  • Rebuilds should include user behaviours, supply infrastructure, reforming innovation and regulatory institutions.
• Tear down and build back up: Fix the societal framework, which is unsustainable and unfair by inclusive re-growth, checking inequities and re-imagining a new social contract. 
  • These are the sewers — the new sanitation systems that must replace the old unsanitary ones. 

Conclusion: 2021 could become the beginning of a new beginning if we get the new boulevards and sewers right.