Enhancing the quality of life in Egyptian cities during pandemics and its consequences on urban planning

Abstract

This research aims to develop mitigation techniques for the implications that affect the city planning sectors in Egypt during COVID-19, which will guide urban planners and policymakers to enhance Egyptian citizen life during pandemics. A statistical thematic methodology was adopted by the research. The research method divided into three phases. The first phase considers the attitude of Egyptian citizens toward the global pandemic through conducting surveys. These surveys discuss the global effects of the pandemic and if these effects are felt in the Egyptian context or not. The second phase targets the citizen that disagree with the global effects as a result of the phase one survey through structured interviews. These interviews concluded the reasons behind the disagreement of the surveys in phase one as well as the effects that they personally suffer from during the pandemic. The third phase targets the policymakers and planners inside Egypt and their perspectives on the suitable mitigation techniques that can be implemented in the Egyptian context. This will finally lead to suggesting a set of mitigation techniques suitable for Egyptian cities. The research paper identified through a review of literature the mostly affected city planning sectors during COVID-19 which were 6 sectors. In addition, 25 global mitigation measures were identified through the literature. Results of the Surveys and structured interviews confirmed that the most affected sectors are transport & land use, housing, and ICT respectively. Findings of data analysis showed that 10 extra mitigation measures were encountered to better enhance the Egyptian cities. These findings help planners and policy makers to plan cities that can cope with future pandemics. This research presents mitigation techniques for the implications that affect the city planning sectors in Egypt during COVID-19. It was based on research from case studies, a literature review, and a survey questionnaire. The mitigation techniques developed in a practical procedure where the goals of the research; required activities; techniques, and tools; elaborated the citizen needs and outputs. The mitigation techniques was authenticated by 24 of the Egyptian professionals’ planners and policy makers to ensure its viability and practicability for implementation. The research categorized and examined the global effects that changed the quality of life during pandemics. Moreover, real life case study authenticated the global effects and explored the most successful mitigation countermeasures that suites the Egyptian context. The study focused on a subject that has recently attracted interest on a global scale. In addition, this paper developed 10 extra mitigation measures to better enhance the Egyptian cities and other developing countries of similar context. It represents a novel contribution that planners and policy makers can employ in similar context to the Egyptian cities.

Keywords:

• City planning sectors
• coronavirus disease (COVID-19)
• pandemics
• domains of quality of life

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT

Huge-scale infectious disease outbreaks known as pandemics can significantly increase morbidity and mortality across a large geographic area and result in serious economic, social, and political disruption which directly affects the citizen quality of life in a negative way. Accordingly, the research identified and analyzed the global effects that changed the quality of life during pandemics. In addition, a real-life case study authenticated the global effects and explored the most effective mitigation measures that suites the Egyptian context. The research tackled a topic that received global attention lately all over the world. In addition, this paper developed 10 extra mitigation measures to better enhance the Egyptian cities and other developing countries of similar context. It represents a novel contribution to be used by planners and policymakers in a similar context to the Egyptian cities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eng.Mostafa Mohamed Elsayed Fahmy Shams

Mostafa Mohamed Elsayed Fahmy Shams I am an honors graduate From the British university in Egypt. I am interested in the research field on quality of life on every scale. This paper was developed after my graduation Thesis to be published.

Marwa Adel Elsayed

Marwa Adel Elsayed. I am an Associate Professor at the British University in Egypt since 2015 and GIS Expert. I am interested in publishing research that is related to Planning, Sustainability, and Quality of life using.

Due to the suffering of Egyptian citizens during the Covid-10 pandemic, we decided to search for the most affected planning sectors that cause negative impacts on the citizens’ quality of life and propose a set of mitigation measures that can be used by planners and policymakers to better mitigate the effects of pandemics (similar to Covid-19) in Egyptian cities. The proposed mitigation measures can be developed afterward to be added to the planning strategy for building new anti-pandemic cities.