Putting the COVID-19 pandemic into perspective: urban planning scholars react to a changed world

The origins of planning as a profession are of course related to public health, with action being seen as needed to respond to the dire conditions of cities in 'the West' in the late nineteenth century [ ]in the years preceding 2020, there was growing evidence to show that planning was re-engaging with health concerns, principally around non-communicable diseases, for example ill-health associated with so-called 'obesogenic' urban environments in contexts across the globe The rapid re-engagement of planning scholars, and indeed the whole world, with communicable disease, shows how events and 'conjunctures' shape the focus and content of planning and illustrates why Town Planning Review, the first urban planning journal in the world, has commissioned this series of Viewpoints