The new coronavirus pandemic is also leaving its mark on the way urban development is conceived, said specialists from the Provincial Physical Planning Directorate.

Las Tunas, Cuba.- If until now, in the updating of the General Plan of Territorial and Urban Planning of the city of Las Tunas, aspects linked to the evolution of the local population such as the demographic aging were considered, now they are considering others such as the responsible distancing and the promotion of remote services.

The Deputy Director of Urban Planning of the Provincial Directorate of Physical Planning (DPPF) here, Tania Vazquez Góngora, said that the pandemic affected the mobility of people, forcing the redesign of services and the way citizens access them. As physical distance for health reasons increases, she said, precedents would be set that would change the way we understand and think about spaces for collective coexistence, especially in cities. "We already have a study that has shown the need to disaggregate services. Not to concentrate them all in one place," she said.

In this sense, she said that it will be necessary in the future to promote sub-centers of services in neighborhoods and districts of Las Tunas city, in order to avoid high concentrations of people in the historic center.

COVID-19 proved the urgency of promoting electronic channels for the provision of payment of key services and, with less success, but equally worthwhile, e-commerce. In this regard, Vázquez Góngora said that they have already advanced proposals in this regard, something that was not considered in the previous version of the Plan concluded in 2014.

She anticipated that they proposed to change the use of existing facilities in the industrial zone, which could become the warehouses needed by the companies in charge of the store networks to expand their sales capacity in virtual stores. The suggestions, he said, were welcomed by the entities mentioned. "That will be a win-win solution," she concluded.