On October 28, 2020, Canada's Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr Theresa Tam, stated that the pandemic was exposing existing inequalities in Canada. In a television address, she said that:

While this may have been a revelation for some people, for the contributors to this volume, and the others in this series, such a direct and unequivocal statement was not surprising.

Such insights are also nothing new to those with lived experiences of these inequalities and injustices. Throughout the four volumes, one of our aims has been to include chapters that amplify these voices by meaningfully, respectfully, and ethically engaging with marginalized communities in order to center their experiences within planning, policy, and political debates about the impact of the pandemic and, importantly, how to respond to it. The findings, analysis, and reflection found throughout this series of books must be a reminder to planners and policy makers that the divisions, inequities, and injustices rendered visible during the COVID-19 pandemic long predate the virus. As a result, any meaningful policies to address them must primarily focus on the structural forces that produce unequal cities and societies.

The chapters in this volume prompt us to ask two important questions. First, does the pandemic require us to think of new ideas or solutions? Or phrased another way, can the challenges of the pandemic be addressed by implementing policies that scholars, advocates, and practitioners have been calling for for many years? Is it a question of new ideas, or changing priorities? Related to this, the second question we must ask is this: what social, economic, planning, and political factors need to change in order to build more equitable cities?

You are currently reading one of the four volumes of Global Reflections on COVID-19 and Urban Inequalities, which jointly explore schisms the pandemic has both revealed and widened, and measures taken to mitigate or eradicate these societal gaps. The aim of this series of edited volumes is to bring together a collection of critical urban voices across various disciplines, geographies, and perspectives in order to examine the urban challenges of COVID-19 and its impact on new and existing inequities in cities around the world.

There are two sides to the pandemic. As a highly contagious disease, given enough time and a lack of effective mitigation to restrain its spread, COVID-19 will eventually infect a large majority of the population, regardless of income or geography. This is why many public health measures are directed at entire national (or indeed global) populations. But we have also quickly learned that COVID-19 is selective in its effects – for instance, based on age and comorbidity – and that the pandemic and responses to it exacerbate fault lines traversing cities, societies, and, indeed, the world order.

There is a clear urban dimension to these inequities. Some parts of the city and some populations who reside in cities are more likely to contract and spread the virus. COVID-19 is thus an amplifier of pre-existing social divisions. Access to medical treatment and possibilities to physically isolate from potential infection are unevenly distributed. So too are the consequences of policy responses, such as lockdowns, the economic impacts of the pandemic, and the individual and political reactions it prompts. The pandemic has therefore increased divisions such as between young and old, rich and poor, left and right, and countless other societal dichotomies. As a result, experiences of urban life during the pandemic vary greatly. Where these impacts of the pandemic intersect with pre-existing racism, ageism, sexism, ableism, and spatial divisions within the city, the consequences have been particularly severe. As we write this preface, vaccines are starting to be produced, distributed, and administered. This poses new questions: will we emerge from the pandemic thanks to these vaccines? How equitable will the distribution of vaccines be within countries and at the global scale?

This context suggests myriad potential urban futures. The planning, policy, and political choices made in the short term will impact the medium-and long-term trajectories of cities and the lives of their residents.