Introduction: Infrastructural stigma and urban vulnerability

In this introduction to the Special Issue ‘Infrastructural Stigma and Urban Vulnerability’, we outline the need to join up debates on infrastructural exclusion on the one hand and urban stigma on the other. We argue that doing so will allow us to develop a better understanding of the co-constitutive relationship between the material and the symbolic structures of the city shaping urban exclusion and vulnerability. Positing that stigma is not merely a symbolic force but has significant material effects, we show how urban dwellers often experience it in deeply embodied ways, including through impacts on their physical health. Furthermore, stigma is not only imposed on the built environment through discourse, it also emanates from the materiality of the city; this agentic role of the city is often disregarded in sociologically-informed approaches to urban stigma. When infrastructures become sites of contestation about urban inclusion, stigma can be utilised by stigmatised residents to demand connection to public networks, and the wider symbolic inclusion this entails. Through examining the issue of infrastructural stigma in cities and urban territories across the Global North and Global South, as well as the places in between, the nine articles in this Special Issue pay attention to the global relationalities of infrastructural stigma. Ultimately, our focus on the infrastructural origins of stigma draws attention to the structural causes of urban inequality – a reality which is often occluded by both stigma itself and by prevalent academic approaches to understanding it.

Priority in post-earthquake intervention

The paper first examines the three components that summarize the fundamental structure of seismic risk: hazard, exposure, vulnerability (and urban vulnerability). Based on the three components considered, the study highlights the positive elements and strategic errors committed and to explains the paradigm shift necessary to overcome the prevailing focus of interventions on the installation of new temporary wooden houses. With reference to the negative and positive aspects found in experiences, the aim of the study is the proposal of improvement solutions and new rules to guide the post-earthquake phase. The research findings identify the need to plan the postearthquake phase in advance and to consider it a priority over the emergency phase.

The Hanoak House as a Flexible and Adaptable Vernacular Precedent for Modern Architecture

Globally the adverse effects of climate change necessitate the implementation of resilient systems that respond to escalating weather fluctuations and increased urban vulnerability. This requires a shift from the traditional efficiency-focused solutions, towards robust, responsive and flexible models. While novel technologies are being developed to address these needs; existing vernacular examples also present innovative solutions. The purpose of this study is to analyse vernacular solutions, in this case Korean Hanoak housing typologies, in terms their integration of flexible and adaptable spatial and technological systems to inform modern applications. As research method, the study firstly employed an unstructured observational method to document the spatial and technological elements of these vernacular precedents, followed by an intersubjective literature review of these precedents to understand the historic context. As main conclusion the study identified seven design principles to inform the development of flexible and adaptable modern architecture solutions. These include: holistic, integrative design; articulated and reciprocally layered systems; nested levels of flexible and inflexible systems; appropriate scale identification; and appropriate technology use. As contribution, this article analyses existing vernacular precedents and highlights principles that can be applied in various contexts to develop locally responsive and flexible architecture.

Urban Vulnerability Assessment for Pandemic Surveillance—The COVID-19 Case in Bogotá, Colombia

A pandemic devastates the lives of global citizens and causes significant economic, social, and political disruption. Evidence suggests that the likelihood of pandemics has increased over the past century because of increased global travel and integration, urbanization, and changes in land use with a profound affectation of society–nature metabolism. Further, evidence concerning the urban character of the pandemic has underlined the role of cities in disease transmission. An early assessment of the severity of infection and transmissibility can help quantify the pandemic potential and prioritize surveillance to control highly vulnerable urban areas in pandemics. In this paper, an Urban Vulnerability Assessment (UVA) methodology is proposed. UVA investigates various vulnerability factors related to pandemics to assess the vulnerability in urban areas. A vulnerability index is constructed by the aggregation of multiple vulnerability factors computed on each urban area (i.e., urban density, poverty index, informal labor, transmission routes). This methodology is useful in a-priori evaluation and development of policies and programs aimed at reducing disaster risk (DRR) at different scales (i.e., addressing urban vulnerability at national, regional, and provincial scales), under diverse scenarios of resources scarcity (i.e., short and long-term actions), and for different audiences (i.e., the general public, policy-makers, international organizations). The applicability of UVA is shown by the identification of high vulnerable areas based on publicly available data where surveillance should be prioritized in the COVID-19 pandemic in Bogotá, Colombia.