City as the core of contagion? Repositioning COVID-19 at the social and spatial periphery of urban society

Abstract

COVID-19 proliferates in extended forms of urbanization. Traditionally a metaphor of escape, the global suburb has become the epicentre of zoonotic transmission, infection through travel, and community spread. Against this background, we point out that where the virus is, you find the peripheral, in the city and in society. In this reflection, we sketch the challenges and potentialities of the landscape of care in the urban periphery in Toronto, Canada and Milan/Lombardy, Italy during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Moving forward, we need to ask multi-scalar, cross-disciplinary questions and focus on inequities in our social and spatial peripheries.