Lockdown. Urban resilience of Middle East cities during COVID-19.

The sudden and unprecedented spread of the COVID-19 health emergency has had devastating effects worldwide, putting a strain on health systems, the economies of individual countries and changing behaviours and ways of living in cities. This dossier examines a selection of Middle Eastern cities with heterogeneous characteristics in terms of urban structure, economic strength and socio-cultural context, whose resilience capacity has countered the impact of the pandemic with significant and sometimes unexpected results.