The Resilience of Egyptian Cities against Health Crises 'Egyptian Pandemic City Tool'

Abstract

The world today, recovering from a pandemic crisis, has witnessed a complete change in everyday challenges and routines. Following the COVID-19 crisis, the world was forced to face the challenge of preserving human life. Today, city planners and urban designers have to establish cities that can mitigate the impact of health problems; in other words, the city's urban product must be more resilient against health problems. The condition of completely shutting down urban areas and transforming them into infirmities has led to great economic and social crises. Economically, the world has lost at least 3.7 trillion dollars, equivalent to 4.4% of the Global Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The present paper aims at developing a tool that has the ability to measure the resilience of the Egyptian urban settlements against pandemic crises; thus, helping planners and urban designers to establish and promote pandemic cities. Based on profound theoretical and analytical studies, the concept of pandemic cities was studied and analyzed composing a list of indicators that illustrate the ability of existing urban settlements to face pandemic crises. Then, based on the findings of an empirical study that targeted Egyptian experts, the most relevant indicators were identified. Using relative importance index (RII), the relative weights of indicators were calculated and utilized as a tool that can measure the resilience of Egyptian urban settlements against pandemic crises.