2021 has been a year marked with extreme weather events of all categories – heat waves, droughts, storms, floods, tornados, etc. They took place across the globe, in both hemispheres, and from the tropics to the polar caps. They are affecting the urbanized regions unevenly – such as in the Middle East, where droughts have always been a problem but are now even worse, and in the face of rapidly growing populations – but they are affecting the whole world. The extraordinary scale, intensity and frequency of the events has forced scientists, mainstream media, political leaders and the public to
realise that the climate HAS changed. Climate change is no more a prediction but a crisis.
So, 2021 has been another ‘different’ year, in the wake of the also ‘different’ year 2020, when a novel coronavirus triggered the Covid global pandemic, with enormous public health, economic and political consequences. But both years have also been hailed as an excellent opportunity for radical societal and economic transformation. Disappointingly, we have yet to see strategic plans and actual development in that direction, rather than attempts to return to the ‘old normal’.
Instead of bold and transformative visions, we have so far seen in most nations and cities shock and bewilderment and the stalling of spatial development plans. Instead of mobilizing planning more than ever, we have seen planning paralysis. Not only have entire nations, regions and cities been put into lockdowns, but planning itself has been locked down.
