Co-hosted workshop on COVID-19 urban impacts and governance

On Friday 17 February 2023, GCRO together with Prof. Phil Harrison – the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning – organised a full day workshop reflecting on the urban impacts of COVID in Gauteng, and its governance. The workshop hosted three international scholars working with Prof. Harrison on an Urban Studies Foundation funded comparative research project titled: The city after COVID-19: Vulnerability and urban governance in Chicago, Toronto, and Johannesburg. See here for an overview of the project.

The visitors were Prof. Roger Keil from York University in Toronto, Prof Xuefei Ren from Michigan State University in Chicago, and Doctoral Fellow Hillary Birch, also at York University. Gauteng participants included representatives from the GCRO, the Gauteng Premier's Office and the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, amongst others.

The workshop aimed to introduce the visiting scholars to the Gauteng context, what happened under COVID, and how governments in the province responded to the crisis. Presentations from the GCRO, and provincial and local government, were set in comparative perspective with those from Chicago and Toronto. Unfortunately a lunchtime brownbag seminar in which Prof. Keil was meant to provide an introduction to his new book Pandemic Urbanism did not happen because of a medical emergency. But the various presentations nonetheless set up a fascinating discussion that helped to deepen our understanding of the urban impacts of the pandemic and how COVID governance differed across the cities.

See here for the final programme for the workshop.

Prof. Philip Harrison, NRF South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning

Associate Prof. Xuefei Ren from Michigan State University