By Lee Kah Whye For many cities, the COVID-19 pandemic is now in the rear-view mirror. There are still some outbreaks and along with it, concerns and worries, but generally people are less fearful of the virus than two years ago. How countries and cities have emerged from this once-in-a-lifetime (hopefully) medical crisis varies and mostly depended on how their national and local governments and officials responded. The better resourced ones, and those who took a far-sighted strategic view and planned for a post-COVID-19 world, emerged stronger and ahead of their rivals. Recently, The Economist published an index which ranked…