and public spaces, and family and community life, especially for poorer people and neighbourhoods (supporting the third dimension) (Dávalos, Maldonado and Polit 2016).


Under the second dimension, urban form implies strategically adding density and different uses of land in cities, while also considering potential trade-offs for risk prevention and urban resilience. Candidate areas for these strategic interventions include neighbourhoods without enough spaces to support mixed-use developments that increase access to everyday needs, walking and cycling opportunities, and urban environments that are rich in public transit (UNEP 2020b). The COVID-19 pandemic, and more generally the prospect of future widespread contagions, raise the question of whether this mixed use, walkable urban form and associated density is desirable. Early results of empirical analyses (Blanco 2020) suggest that neither city size nor dwelling unit density (per acre or hectare) are in themselves factors in the spread of COVID-19, although more work remains to be done (United Nations 2020; United Nations Human Settlements Programme [UN-Habitat] 2021). Instead, urban space-modelling and production that has led to residential crowding in low-income communities appears to be the main factor (Carozzi, Provenzano and Roth 2020; Hamidi, Sabouri and Ewing 2020; Sethi and Creutzig 2021). In New York City, communities mainly populated by people who are unable to work from home (including “essential workers”, who are disproportionately people of colour) may have had faster increases in caseloads, hospitalizations and mortality (NYU Furman Center 2020). This phenomenon has also been observed in cities in Nigeria and Mexico, where COVID-19 infections and deaths have been clearly linked to informality, poverty and lack of access to public services (Ugwu et al. 2020; CONEVAL 2021). Other cases have also revealed similar instances of “hidden poverty” in urban areas and the implications for the spread of COVID-19 in cities in the Global South, including Bogota, Santiago de Chile, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Delhi, Mumbai and Hong Kong (Hamidi, Sabouri and Ewing 2020; Lustig et al. 2020; Patino 2020; United Nations 2020).


With respect to urban density, when public health measures are in place and followed, density actually supports urban populations during a pandemic. However, the design is crucial. High-rise towers that are accessible only via elevators are often undesirable, as are closely spaced single-family housing neighbourhoods that lack parks and open space (Mayen and Cafagna 2021). High-density, low- and mid-rise urban forms, such as multi-family floor walk-up housing with between three and five floors and accessible via both stairways and elevators is desirable in terms of health and liveability (Chow 2002). Mixed-used, mid-rise residential buildings with internal courtyards and an urban fabric featuring wider sidewalks and more cycle lanes allow easy access to daily essential services, promote neighbourhood cohesion and reduce isolation among people working from home. This dense urban design offers accessible open-air green spaces where residents can walk, exercise, play with children and companion animals and socialize with friends and family while respecting social distancing requirements (Honey-Rosés et al. 2020). Lastly,


74 GEO for Cities


the types of urban form proposed here are also crucial to avoid the planetary risks posed by climate change and environmental degradation.


This model of urban living based on greater sharing of space, infrastructure and amenities challenges urban residents, particularly in the Global North, to rethink the ideal of low-density privatized lifestyles. Urban life atomized by distance, social difference and individual ownership compromises urban resilience and inhibits the collective action needed to adapt the built environment in the face of climate change. Achieving this vision of the future requires planning that delivers both social and built environment resilience and denser and more interdependent cities.


This dimension promotes cities with cleaner air, soil and water, with less GHG and other pollutant emissions and more blue, green and grey infrastructure that helps people and places adapt to the effects of climate change and provides immediate protection from climate events (Matthews, Lo and Byrne 2015; Li, Uyttenhove and Van Eetvelde 2020). Sea walls, river barrages and other traditional grey infrastructure may be required in some cities and can even enhance urban life through multifunctional design. However, this must be achieved without transferring risk to peri-urban or rural hinterland residents. In contrast, in other cities, nature-based infrastructure solutions may replace grey infrastructure (Depietri and McPhearson 2017; Delgado Ramos et al. 2020). Alongside a variety of critical strategies for improving mechanical cooling (UNEP and IEA 2020), blue and green infrastructure such as floodable and floating buildings, parks and open space, green roofs and walls, and carefully designed and tended urban and peri-urban forests can reduce ambient temperatures, the severity of heatwaves and wildfire risk (Livesley, McPherson and Calfapietra 2016). Tree-lined streets, bioswales, and windbreaks offer shelter and shade, provide habitat and movement corridors for wildlife while making walking, biking and other types of physical activity more enjoyable and reducing vulnerability to heat stress (Schuster et al. 2017). Bringing urban creeks and streams back to the surface makes cities more permeable and reduces flood risk. Similarly, the restoration of estuaries and wetlands using nature-based vector controls improves flood protection, access to nature, leisure space, multispecies benefits and ecosystem health (Walton 2019). Finally, planning that takes into account people with low incomes, allows parks, open and public spaces, habitats and green infrastructure to be more fairly distributed across the city, while limiting eco-gentrification driven by real estate strategies for place- branding and increased property values (this is discussed further in the third dimension) (Wolch, Byrne and Newell 2014; Ruth and Gulsrud 2016; Wu et al. 2019; Nesbitt et al. 2019; Mulligan et al. 2020; Tubridy 2020; Baró et al. 2021). Nature- based solutions in practice need to be aesthetically appealing to citizens while generating new green urban commons based on participatory co-creation, social innovation and collaborative governance (Frantzeskaki 2019).


This dimension also prioritizes social as well as physical resilience. Social resilience in the face of environmental change depends on the capacity of residents and


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