The COVID-19 pandemic is a once-in-a-century public health crisis, an economic catastrophe, and a human tragedy of the first order, whose impact has been most keenly felt in cities. That’s because plagues and pandemics turn the dense living patterns, international connectivity, and sheer 24/7 busyness of cities—the basic drivers of their productivity—against them. That said, … [Read more...] about Post-Covid Response and Recovery for Latin American and Caribbean Cities
Adaptive reuse: historic practices during a crisis
COVID-19 has been advancing rapidly and disrupting our daily lives. The virus has demanded to use our creativity to convert spaces and host temporarily new emergency uses. As many of us stay home adapting our own house as office, school, nursery and/or nursing, key stakeholders in our cities are working to contain the pandemic and converting even iconic sites, adapting them in … [Read more...] about Adaptive reuse: historic practices during a crisis
The sneaky enemies: the novel coronavirus and old pandemics
It may seem nonsensical to reflect calmly when COVID-19 is winning a race that will redefine our future. We are surprised by its arrival, despite the continuous warnings from the World Health Organization (WHO) about influenza and its possible mutations. In the past, pandemics have confronted us with sneaky enemies who, at the cost of substantial human losses and severe … [Read more...] about The sneaky enemies: the novel coronavirus and old pandemics
10 lines of action and 20 measures to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus in informal settlements
On March 11th, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified the new Coronavirus or nCoV-2019 as a pandemic. In Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), thousands of confirmed cases have already been reported, in almost all the countries of the region, and an increasing number of deaths. The number of cases, the number of deaths and the number of affected countries is … [Read more...] about 10 lines of action and 20 measures to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus in informal settlements
Behind the scenes: Big Data analysis for public policy
In the previous blog Analyzing and improving access to culture we told the story of the Pase Cultural program evaluation. Behind that story is an open code tool that was key in analyzing the big, complex datasets generated by the program. The tool, called Georeferenced Program Evaluation (GPE), was designed for detailed geospatial analysis to measure the effectiveness of a … [Read more...] about Behind the scenes: Big Data analysis for public policy