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COVID-19 exacerbated food system vulnerabilities globally. This study assesses the impact of shock events on food accessibility in New York City (NYC) by examining its association with neighborhood characteristics between 2019 and 2020. We model food accessibility using socioeconomic and built environment factors, adjusting for spatial effects with spatial econometric models and geographically weighted regression (GWR). Our spatial modeling methods reveal diverging relationships between minority racial/ethnic groups and food accessibility, as well as a negative change in the effect of income. Overall, our results indicate that food accessibility worsened or polarized during the pandemic, suggesting the need for improved network connectivity and smaller-scale food stores to achieve equitable and resilient food systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 exposed the vulnerability of compact cities against shock events. As the impact of COVID-19 not only persists, but also expands throughout the world, this study questions whether the compact city model would be sustainable in the post-COVID-19 era. As such, this study examines the dynamics among major COVID-19 outbreak events, government interventions, and subway ridership in two compact cities, Seoul and New York City. Then, to gain thorough understanding of the impact of risks on compact urban form, it narrows the scope to Seoul in comparing subway ridership patterns in 2019 and 2020, and identifying characteristics that affect the volatility of subway ridership levels. The results affirm that individual mobility, COVID-19 outbreaks, and government interventions are closely related, and reveal that the extent of social distancing measures in compact cities is limited. This finding aligns with existing literature that link diseases transmission with dense population and mixed land use, accentuating the vulnerability of the compact city model against shocks. As a result, a multidimensional urban planning approach that incorporates polycentric and decentralized urban form is recommended to effectively and sustainably control disease outbreaks in compact cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]