BBC Learnings · Section 7

Will Covid-19 change cities

From the bubonic plague to cholera and tuberculosis, disease and pandemics have changed the way cities have been built.

Level: C1 · 111 sentences

Transcript

  1. From the bubonic plague to cholera and tuberculosis,
  2. disease and pandemics have changed the way cities have been built.
  3. For example, buildings in 19th century Paris were designed with large,
  4. high-up windows to allow plenty of sunlight.
  5. They were supposed to stop the spread of tuberculosis.
  6. Coronavirus has been no different.
  7. In lockdown, cities from Rio to Barcelona were transformed as wildlife
  8. and birdsong replaced the noise of taxi horns and traffic.
  9. And with no car pollution,
  10. you could even see the stars at night.
  11. In this programme, we'll be asking if cities
  12. after lockdown will ever be the same again,
  13. and if we want them to be.
  14. We'll be hearing some ideas from different cities around the world.
  15. And of course, we'll be learning
  16. some new vocabulary along the way.
  17. One of the cities most affected
  18. by Covid-19 was Mumbai in India.
  19. But approximately how many people were affected?
  20. What's the estimated population of Mumbai?
  21. That's my quiz question for you today, Rob.
  22. Is it...
  23. I know Mumbai is an international mega-city, so I'll say B.
  24. 20 million people.
  25. OK, Rob, we'll find out later if that's right.
  26. Now, Beatrice Colomina is a professor of architecture
  27. at Princeton University in the United States.
  28. She spent years researching the relationship between cities and disease.
  29. Here she is talking with Kavita Puri,
  30. presenter of BBC World Service programme, The Inquiry.
  31. Take tuberculosis. Unlike cholera, which was eliminated
  32. in London by redesigning the sewage system
  33. in the 1850s, TB was airborne.
  34. But it became really a problem
  35. with the rise of the industrial cities
  36. and metropolis before an antibiotic was effective.
  37. One in seven people on the planet had TB,
  38. but in dense cities like Paris, it was one in three.
  39. Closely packed tenements meant the disease spread like wildfire,
  40. and architects and planning experts responded.
  41. Some diseases, like cholera,
  42. could be prevented by redesigning cities to improve hygiene,
  43. like the wastewater sewers in 19th century London.
  44. But the problem with tuberculosis, or TB for short,
  45. was that the disease is airborne,
  46. carried and spread in the air.
  47. Adding to the problem was the fact that antibiotics –
  48. medicines like penicillin that can destroy harmful bacteria
  49. or stop their growth – was not discovered until 1928,
  50. too late to save thousands of people
  51. who died in Mumbai, New York, Paris
  52. and other cities during the 1800s.
  53. Diseases like TB killed more and more people
  54. as cities industrialised and grew bigger and bigger,
  55. leading to the creation of the metropolis.
  56. the largest, busiest and most important city in a country or region.
  57. Many people crowded together in large metropolises,
  58. meaning that disease could spread like wildfire –
  59. an idiom meaning spread quickly around many people.
  60. Even today, disease is shaping our cities.
  61. In post-Covid Paris, new ideas for a 15-minute city
  62. aim to make all public services available within a 15-minute walk,
  63. to help people working from home.
  64. Other countries want to build better,
  65. more affordable housing outside the city centre.
  66. But according to Mumbai resident Dr Vardy Tandel,
  67. this won't work, even if the housing on offer is better.
  68. But why? The reason is work.
  69. When you shift them out, you're moving them away
  70. from their livelihoods and they're not
  71. going to be able to sustain themselves there.
  72. So they will be coming back
  73. because their jobs are in the city
  74. and they cannot afford the commute from farther off places.
  75. Dr Vardy Tandel there,
  76. talking on the BBC World Service programme The Enquiry.
  77. Trying to make cities less crowded
  78. is one way to minimise the risks from disease,
  79. but moving people away from the city centre
  80. means moving them away from their livelihood,
  81. their job or other way of earning money
  82. to pay for food, housing and clothing.
  83. Many people still want to live near
  84. their workplace in the city centre
  85. because they can't afford to pay for the commute,
  86. the journey between their home and their place of work.
  87. Yeah, which is a real problem
  88. when you live in a city of...
  89. how many people did you say live in Mumbai, Neil?
  90. Ah yes. In our quiz question I asked
  91. you what the estimated population of Mumbai is.
  92. I said b 20 million people.
  93. And you were absolutely right.
  94. Around 20 million people live in the Mumbai metropolis,
  95. making it very difficult to socially distance.
  96. In this programme we've been discussing
  97. the relationship between cities and disease.
  98. In the 1800s, tuberculosis, or TB,
  99. killed thousands because it was an airborne disease,
  100. spread in the air and hard to prevent.
  101. Antibiotics, medicinal chemicals like penicillin, which can destroy harmful germs,
  102. couldn't help because they weren't discovered until decades later.
  103. So in metropolises, the largest and most important cities where people live,
  104. crowded close together, diseases spread like wildfire.
  105. an idiom meaning spread widely and quickly.
  106. In Mumbai and other places, the problem remains
  107. that many people need the city for their livelihood,
  108. job or other way of earning money.
  109. So they prefer to live in the city centre instead of paying
  110. for the daily commute – a journey often by train,
  111. bus or car from your home to your workplace.