The informal settlements of the Global South are the least prepared for the pandemic of COVID-19 since basic needs such as water, toilets, sewers, drainage, waste collection, and secure and adequate housing are already in short supply or non-existent. Further, space constraints, violence, and overcrowding in slums make physical distancing and self-quarantine impractical, and the rapid spread of an infection highly likely. Residents of informal settlements are also economically vulnerable during any COVID-19 responses. Any responses to COVID-19 that do not recognize these realities will further jeopardize the survival of large segments of the urban population globally. Most top-down strategies to arrest an infectious disease will likely ignore the often-robust social groups and knowledge that already exist in many slums. Here, we offer a set of practice and policy suggestions that aim to (1) dampen the spread of COVID-19 based on the latest available science, (2) improve the likelihood of medical care for the urban poor whether or not they get infected, and (3) provide economic, social, and physical improvements and protections to the urban poor, including migrants, slum communities, and their residents, that can improve their long-term well-being. Immediate measures to protect residents of urban informal settlements, the homeless, those living in precarious settlements, and the entire population from COVID-19 include the following: (1) institute informal settlements/slum emergency planning committees in every urban informal settlement; (2) apply an immediate moratorium on evictions; (3) provide an immediate guarantee of payments to the poor; (4) immediately train and deploy community health workers; (5) immediately meet Sphere Humanitarian standards for water, sanitation, and hygiene; (6) provide immediate food assistance; (7) develop and implement a solid waste collection strategy; and (8) implement immediately a plan for mobility and health care. Lessons have been learned from earlier pandemics such as HIV and epidemics such as Ebola. They can be applied here. At the same time, the opportunity exists for public health, public administration, international aid, NGOs, and community groups to innovate beyond disaster response and move toward long-term plans.

Although the intent of community-based participatory research (CBPR) is to include community voices in all phases of a research initiative, community partners appear less frequently engaged in data analysis and interpretation than in other research phases. Using 4 brief case studies, each with a different data collection methodology, we provide examples of how community members participated in data analysis, interpretation, or both, thereby strengthening community capacity and providing unique insight. The roles and skills of the community and academic partners were different from but complementary to each other. We suggest that including community partners in data analysis and interpretation, while lengthening project time, enriches insights and findings and consequently should be a focus of the next generation of CBPR initiatives.

Although public health and urban planning emerged with the common goal of preventing urban outbreaks of infectious disease, there is little overlap between the fields today. The separation of the fields has contributed to uncoordinated efforts to address the health of urban populations and a general failure to recognize the links between, for example, the built environment and health disparities facing low-income populations and people of color. I review the historic connections and lack thereof between urban planning and public health, highlight some challenges facing efforts to recouple the fields, and suggest that insights from ecosocial theory and environmental justice offer a preliminary framework for reconnecting the fields around a social justice agenda.

This article reveals how local knowledge can improve planning for communities facing the most serious environmental and health risks. These communities often draw on their firsthand experience—here called local knowledge—to challenge expert-lay distinctions. Community participation in environmental decisions is putting pressure on planners to find new ways of fusing the expertise of scientists with insights from the local knowledge of communities. Using interviews, primary texts, and ethnographic fieldwork, this article defines local knowledge, reveals how it differs from professional knowledge, and argues that local knowledge can improve planning in at least four ways (1) epistemology, adding to the knowledge base of environmental policy; (2) procedural democracy, including new and previously silenced voices; (3) effectiveness, providing low-cost policy solutions; and (4) distributive justice, highlighting inequitable distributions of environmental burdens.

This paper explores how city planners engaged with global climate scientists to devise contextually relevant strategies to address the urban heat island effect—a potentially dangerous heat event expected to increase along with global warming. Drawing original data from the New York City Regional Heat Island Initiative, a collaborative effort between scientists and urban planners, the paper highlights how global climate science is `localised' as researchers and policy-makers struggle to make technically legitimate and politically accountable decisions. The paper argues that the localisation of global science often involves a process of co-production, where technical issues are not divorced from their social setting and a diverse set of stakeholders engage in analytical reviews and the crafting of policy solutions. The paper argues that the co-production framework can contribute to more scientifically legitimate and publicly accountable decision-making related to urban climate change.

This study explores the potential associations between historic redlining and urban health outcomes in nine U.S. cities: Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Oakland, San Francisco, and St. Louis. We hypothesize that historic redlining has influenced current racial and ethnic health inequities that are spatially patterned by neighborhoods. Using shape files for redlining in nine cities, U.S. Census data and the Centers for Disease Control, 500 Cities Project health data, we tested for the strength of the association between historically redlined neighborhoods and 14 health outcomes today. We found associations between historically redlined neighborhoods and current day prevalence of cancer, asthma, poor mental health, and people lacking health insurance. We also found that residents in historically redlined areas of Atlanta, Cleveland, Miami, and the San Francisco-Oakland metropolitan areas were nearly twice as likely to have poor health than in nonredlined areas. Spatial racial segregation and poor health remain critical environmental justice issues impacting communities of color. Our study aims to highlight one historically rooted process that may be contributing to racialized health inequalities today. Our preliminary analysis across multiple cities and multiple health outcomes suggests that the legacy of redlining may be contributing to chronic health inequities within urban areas. Although further research is needed, policy responses must consider how to reverse and repair the legacy of structural racism such as redlining.