Design and planning strategies for housing in the post-COVID-19 era: lessons learned from the pandemic

Rapid growth and urbanization in India have led to a lack of housing and other infrastructural facilities, as well as restricted access to essential amenities and services in urban centers, resulting in a low quality of life for the population. As a result, the homeless and poor groups living in unsafe, unhygienic, congested, and inadequate conditions constitute a significant portion of informal urban settlements, and these marginalized communities are subject to serious public health concerns that affect their physical and mental health. The impact of urban sprawl was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, in which disease spread rapidly due to high population densities and inadequate living conditions. The disease spread more rapidly in informal settlements that housed the urban impoverished, but many cases were also reported from formal communities. This study examines the main issues of Design and Planning at the Micro, Meso, and Macro levels that contributed to the disease's rapid spread. A Mixed-Methods research design was utilized to assess consumer perception and satisfaction at the dwelling and neighborhood levels, as well as to establish the ground realities pertaining to a variety of income groups via personal interviews and questionnaire surveys in Delhi, the Case study area. The outcome of the study suggests strategies that can be implemented through Design at the building level, Planning at the neighborhood level, and Implementation framework at the city level for an integrated approach to managing health emergencies and promoting a sustainable lifestyle, resulting in safer, more resilient communities. The research opens up new avenues for establishing planning guidelines for the intensity of development and optimal population densities, which is particularly important for developing nations. This is a specialized area that requires considerable deliberation and investigation to guarantee holistic development for a sustainable future.