Abstract
Cities are urban areas where we live, communicate, and navigate. Each area has its own characteristics which greatly affects its users. they can gather, crowd, or segregate us. Thus, urban planning has an evident role in controlling humans' behavior. This relation raises a question; in case of epidemic-spread, how can urban planning contribute to containing such a crisis? In the mid- nineteenth century, spatial analysis was the key solution for managing and containing cholera. during that time GIS (Geographical Information System) proved the inevitable relation between controlling an epidemic spread and urban planning. Recently, the world has been hit by a contagious disease which quickly turned into a pandemic known as COVID-19. This pandemic has been attacking countries with their different aspects; public health, economy, education, tourism, religious ritual, and urban planning. Many liveable capitals have been changed to ghost cities. Yet, even it is just a temporal effect, urban planning is a basic and effective tool to contain such a crisis. This paper will focus on the possibility of containing COVID-19 across different scenarios by proposing an urban planning approach using Space Syntax. The proposed approach targets effective management of COVID-19 crisis depending on overlaying epidemiological data with spatial analysis mainly Space Syntax analysis which acts as an exemplary tool to measure integration values of roads network to define the most integrated and the most segregated areas within a city. the resulted map would guide in predicting areas most vulnerable to epidemiological spread. Moreover, it would guide in breaking gradually existing curfew. First, this paper will review the linkage between urban planning and an epidemic crisis through listing some of the previous experiences in using spatial tools to contain an epidemic effectively. Then, this paper will propose a new urban planning approach to contain the epidemic as much as possible. Finally, results, conclusions, and recommendations will be listed.
