Appraising The Case Examples of Smart-Cities Policies Taking on the Impact of Pandemic

Abstract

With many sections of the city affected due to Pandemic, there is a dire need to assess the vulnerability of Pandemic hit areas in a city. Majorly, market places, slum areas, residential areas, transportations means, educational institutions and religious areas which comes under High Density people intensive areas are vulnerable to any future pandemic. Newer Policies, capacity building, technologies and awareness among the people have paved a safer way in eradication and/or curbing the Pandemic. There are set prototypes and case examples which intervened in the city, have proven their worth when implemented within the city. Global cities like London, Singapore, Japan & S. Korea and Indian cities like Bengaluru, Pune, Agra, Varanasi, and Chandigarh have developed solutions to safely handle the Pandemic and kept their citizens served and informed.

The Pandemic has physically, socially and economically impacted the cities which is the part of discussion among urban planners, architects, epidemiologists and doctors, who are further willing to propose newer policies for cities to control the future pandemic. There are city specific solutions developed recently by policy advisors at local level, city level and state level which are helping in recovering from the impact of pandemic, faster. Smart city policy solutions and technologies are closely integrated to full fill local city’s need and the need of the general people both [1-2].

Policies regarding capacity building, awareness, data analysis, big data and artificial Intelligence have given the way to handle the impacts of the current pandemic. City Governments are paving out ways to think about the future of the cities and existing vulnerability of the cities. The policy advisor at various levels in urban planning need start strategizing the resilience of urban areas. There are provisions in providing the much-required awareness about vulnerable areas in a city through interactive maps [2]. There is a way finding for such pandemic as the already implemented solutions have shown their worth in tough times.

Since the Pandemic, according to the theories, has come after 100 years [3] therefore the research shall be majorly focused on exploratory techniques. Hence, the results shall be concluded based on the already implemented policies and the impacts happened in urban areas. The impacts of pandemic are new and it has never happened of this scale that’s is why the data is limited and will be available after the results from public experiences. There are physical, social and economic setups shattered by this pandemic and people are highly impacted due to this. Transportation, industrial, educational, housing and healthcare sections are highly impacted [3] due to this pandemic and are now recovering due to newer policy environment. The Methodology shall be further subdivided into Primary research and Secondary Research, which further includes surveys, questionnaires, interviews, literature reviews and Online research to collect the data.

Expected Contributions through the research paper is that the impacts of pandemic are quite measurable and will bring out results through case examples. It has been crucial to bring the physical, socio-economic changes for further generations to know about the changes brought in the cities due to the pandemic [3]. Urban planning Policies and Digitization are two different verticals, but during pandemic the integration of both has brought positive results in the community in the form of inclusive e-governance. Combination of Urban policies and Digitization for citizens, after the negative impacts of pandemic, have given a new cushion to safeguard the public [3]. The policy interventions which helped in curbing the pandemic shall be studied. Also, the purpose of Smart City mission and National Digital mission is to bring the inclusivity in the cities and to keep people informed about every possible information. Therefore, newer policies shall bring newer positive impacts in the community which can be studied and related result can be brought out for researchers [4].

Safety, security, information, accuracy in results is highly required, for the public to be informed throughout the day[2]. Integrated Urban management may bring integrated solutions of urban governance and e-governance which may shape a new infrastructure for the public welfare.

During Covid-19, high density areas are more vulnerable and highly impacted by the people itself. Policy intervention and Digitization have brought positive results and people may enjoy the public services at their door steps [1,2]. Newer policies need newer challenges, and this pandemic has provided an opportunity to bring newer policies in cities which are either already tested or being tested, for resilient future cities