43. Post-pandemic Urban World: Rethinking Urban Policies for Selected Indian Cities

With ninety percent of COVID-19 reported cases from urban areas, the urban world became an epicenter of the pandemic. A technology-driven approach was followed by Chinese cities had managed to keep the transmission in control. However, in Western countries, a human-driven approach was followed to combat the pandemic. The cities of global south were relatively more challenged in terms of technology as well as human-driven approaches. Likewise Indian cities too faced additional problems like inadequate infrastructure facilities. The pandemic aftermath did lay bare the disparities among different population groups, particularly the vulnerable ones who had been dually hit by low income as well as weak social and economic coverage. Though a multitude of research has been done on the general impact of pandemic, a limited number of research outpourings were observed on the impact of pandemic on the ‘third space’. As a critical component of social distancing all the ‘communal hangout spots’ like park, local markets and gyms were forced to shut down during a pandemic which critically altered the social infrastructure. The study aimed to understand of the impact of pandemics on urban life, with a focus on the ‘third spaces’, in the selected Indian cities. The methodology was integrated research review which included research output from popularly used database of scientific articles as well as government reports, documents, etc. This chapter questions how these spaces are perceived and how the perception changed during the outbreak.