City as the core of contagion? Repositioning COVID-19 at the social and spatial periphery of urban society

1

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 proliferates in extended forms of urbanization. Traditionally a metaphor of escape, the global suburb has become the epicentre of zoonotic transmission, infection through travel, and community spread. Against this background, we point out that where the virus is, you find the peripheral, in the city and in society. In this reflection, we sketch the challenges and potentialities of the landscape of care in the urban periphery in Toronto, Canada and Milan/Lombardy, Italy during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Moving forward, we need to ask multi-scalar, cross-disciplinary questions and focus on inequities in our social and spatial peripheries.

KEYWORDS:

• Extended urbanization
• healthcare governance
• care

This article refers to:

Peripheries, politics, centralities: geographies of COVID-19. Reflections from a German perspective on and beyond Biglieri et al

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Samantha Biglieri

Samantha Biglieri is an Assistant Professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Ryerson University, and researches the intersections of built form, health/wellbeing, socio-spatial relationalities, care, older adults, and people living with dementia.

Lorenzo De Vidovich

Lorenzo De Vidovich is a sociologist with a PhD in urban studies from the Politecnico di Milano, and researches welfare and urban governance, post-suburbia, urban regeneration and urban political ecology.

Roger Keil

Roger Keil is a Professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, and researches global suburbanization, urban political ecology, infectious disease, and regional governance. Building on prior joint comparative fieldwork in Toronto and during the international Global Suburbanisms Spring Institute in Florence and Milan in May 2018, the authors deploy their expertise on cities, health and disease to challenge stereotypical views of the suburbs and their role in an age of emerging infectious disease.

https://suburbs.info.yorku.ca/category/news/