Spatial congruency or mismatch? Analyzing the COVID-19 potential infection risk and urban density as businesses reopen

Long Zhou; Sihong Li; Chaosu Li; Guoqiang Shen; Huajie Yang; Pengyu Zhu; Haoying Han; Bin Li

doi:10.1016/j.cities.2022.103615

Spatial congruency or mismatch? Analyzing the COVID-19 potential infection risk and urban density as businesses reopen

Cities. 2022 Apr:123:103615. doi: 10.1016/j.cities.2022.103615. Epub 2022 Jan 25.

Authors

Long Zhou¹, Sihong Li¹, Chaosu Li^{2

3}, Guoqiang Shen⁴, Huajie Yang¹, Pengyu Zhu³, Haoying Han⁴, Bin Li¹

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Innovation and Design, City University of Macau, Macao.
² Urban Governance and Design Thrust, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China.
³ Division of Public Policy, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong.
⁴ College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University, China.

Abstract

Countries worldwide are reopening their businesses despite the continuing COVID-19 crisis and the emergence of new variants. In this context, knowing whether the reopening of businesses at various locations exposes higher risk to the public is essential. Whether urban density correlates with the potential infection risk as concluded by previous studies of the COVID-19 pandemic remains unknown. In this study, taking the Macau Peninsula as a testbed, we first identified business locations for daily activities according to the latest point of interest (POI) data and generated the potential risk surface for COVID-19 infection. Then, using the cellular phone network and urban footprint data, we further analyzed the spatial relationship between COVID-19 potential risk and urban density of population and morphology through visual analytics. Results show that while some degree of spatial congruency exists between medium-risk peaks and urban density hotspots, apparent spatial mismatch exists for high-risk peaks, indicating that the traditional planning control based on urban density is inadequate for mitigating public health risks. POI-based spatial layout and configuration better reflecting business services and associated human activities are recommended in future planning and policy-making for more resilient cities in the post-pandemic era.

Keywords: Business reopen; COVID-19 risk; Daily activities; Point of interests; Spatial relationship; Urban density.

Publication types

Case Reports