Introduction

In this chapter, the authors provide an introduction to the experience of the global pandemic in cities, the special challenges faced in maintaining healthy and livable urban environments, and the unique opportunities to study and document how these cities responded and adapted in real time. The chapter also discusses some of the longer-term and ongoing impacts of the pandemic on cities and speculates about the future of post-pandemic cities. It describes some of the main sources of information drawn from cities and summarizes key adaptive strategies, arguing that reconnections with nature play an unusually important role. The chapter describes the approach taken by the authors and previews the chapters to follow .