Health resilient cities in a post Covid world

Since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus infectious disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak a pandemic on 11 March 2020, the everyday lives of the whole global population have been drastically changed. Lockdown shortened many of the physical worlds to homes and immediate neighbourhoods. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, multiunit residential buildings/apartments/condominiums have been of particular concern to both public health practitioners and the occupants due to the enhanced risk they faced. There is an immense trend in constructing condominiums. Sri Lanka is particularly investing in condominium development for luxury housing as well as to resettle low-income communities. Given the circumstances, it was required to investigate what are the additional risks/exposures that inhabitants of the condominium developments faced during the CoVID19 and how that can be overcome in a future pandemic scenario to support creating health resilient cities. This study is as reported in this chapter is based on a detailed literature critique. It is also framed as a preliminary study that is aimed at supporting the development of an in-depth future study. Accordingly, an exploratory literature review was carried out with 41 published literature which included journal papers, books, online research reports and news articles. Results of the study indicated the need to rethink how we design, develop and construct condominiums that can massively support to enhance the social, economic, physical lives of people and thereby support to create health resilient future cities. Sri Lanka is heavily investing in condominium developments should consider these factors in constructing condominium developments to ensure that future cities are health resilient.