In an article published in the newspaper La Estrella de Valparaíso, PUCV biologist Salvador Donghi discusses the relationship between wild ecosystems and the well-being of people, since the immune system depends, in part, on moods and green areas help to better manage stress. Linking wild areas to cities through territorial planning will surely be one of the many lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. And there is no doubt that what the coronavirus has brought with it goes beyond the strictly sanitary, it has also raised new ways of relating, which undoubtedly should be taken into account in all areas, including, logically, those related to urban planning. This is the view of Salvador Donghi, a biologist at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, who says that the current situation surrounding the pandemic raises many questions and proposals regarding the future redesign of cities. “It has even been proposed that social distance should, in some way, be included in future urban planning. But they forget that only 0.01% of our evolutionary history has been around the modern era, and the rest of the history of the human species has been tied to natural environments. Our physiological functions – as a species – are better adapted to natural spaces than to metropolises and artificial environments, and these are the main causes of stress states in modern society,” he explains. .
