Metropolitics

Post-Covid Mobilities: A Greener World for Tomorrow?

2026-01-13T06:00:00Z

Against the backdrop of the growing climate emergency, Covid-19 radically altered the way mobility is organized. But have the adaptations observed during the pandemic proved to be sustainable? In this series of articles, Metropolitics and the Mobile Lives Forum have joined forces to investigate our changing mobility habits.
---- ▼ Jump to the list of articles in this series ▼ Over the past 20 years, public policies have set ambitious targets to reduce carbon emissions related to mobility,

- Series / Covid-19, public policy, mobility, practices, ecological transition, climate change, lifestyles

The Myth of Urban Exodus from Paris: Mobility in Times of Health Crisis

2025-05-02T05:00:00Z

The rushed departures of city dwellers to the countryside ahead of the first Covid‑19 lockdown, in spring 2020, played into the idea of an urban exodus. After analyzing previously unseen data on Facebook users in France, however, a team of researchers came to quite a different conclusion.
This article seeks to cast light on the mobility dynamics of people in France—and in Paris more particularly—between March 2020 and September 2022, in order to decipher the potential geographical impacts

- Debates / Covid-19, exode urbain, réseaux sociaux, confinement, mobilité, mobilité résidentielle, numérique

Can Universities Learn to Leave Behind Air Travel?

Tamara Ben Ari & Parke Wilde — 2024-10-22T05:00:00Z

At a time when global research is showing that aviation is a carbon-intensive form of transport whose growth absolutely must be stopped, shouldn't universities be the first to set an example? But can researchers, especially the youngest ones, do without these trips for their careers? How can researchers continue to work together, and what criteria should govern their behaviour?
Interview conducted by Thomas Évariste (for the Mobile Lives Forum), and Jean-Baptiste Frétigny, Maxime Huré and

- Interviews / aviation, mobility, university, Covid-19, climate change, research

The Impact of Tort Reform Liability Shields During the Covid‑19 Pandemic: Hyper-Preemption in the States

Davia C. Downey & William M. Myers — 2024-10-01T05:00:00Z

The Covid‑19 pandemic exposed how federal and state preemption hamstrings local policymaking. Using the case of tort reform liability shields during the pandemic, Davia C. Downey and William M. Myers show how this is often a matter of politics divorced from reality.
This essay considers the impact of state–local preemption during the coronavirus pandemic (Pearson and Conway 2021). Preemption is when a higher level of government displaces the lawmaking capabilities of another when they come

- Essays / Covid-19, coronavirus, law, state, United States, pandemic, tort, preemption

Tactical Cycling Urbanism and the Health Crisis

2024-07-05T05:00:00Z

During the Covid-19 health crisis, cyclist numbers increased significantly in urban areas. Public authorities responded by creating new temporary cycling infrastructures in cities. Here, using photographic evidence, a team of researchers analyzes the implementation and long-term consolidation of this tactical cycling urbanism.
In the spring of 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic prompted public authorities to rethink the use of public space, particularly roads, in order to develop means of transport

- From the Field / mobilité, Covid-19, espace public, aménagement, voirie, politiques publiques, vélos, urbanisme tactique, photographie

“Urban Exodus” as an Extension of the Rentier Sector

Aurélie Delage & Max Rousseau & translated by Oliver Waine — 2023-09-15T05:00:00Z

In the French media, the increasingly recurrent topic of urban exodus has been portrayed as one of the consequences the Covid‑19 pandemic. Aurélie Delage and Max Rousseau, however, instead perceive a “relocation of capital” maintained by media discourse.
“There's nothing left to sell.” Heard from the mouths of rural mayors and real estate agents at the end of the summer of 2020, this phrase is taken up like an antiphon as clear proof of the “urban exodus.” If the theme of rural reinvestment

- Debates / exode rural, immobilier, capital, Covid-19, géographie critique

Lockdown Experiences of the Youth of the Paris Banlieues

Jeanne Demoulin & Collectif Pop-Part & translated by Oliver Waine — 2022-09-16T05:00:00Z

How did young people from working-class neighborhoods in France experience lockdown during the Covid-19 crisis? A collective survey conducted in different towns in the Paris suburbs highlights the resources they mobilized to cope with coronavirus.
The youth of working-class neighborhoods in France covers a diverse reality, particularly in terms of age, gender, origin, and religion (Kakpo 2006; Marlière 2011; Truong 2015). Nevertheless, they share a common experience of inequality, which the

- From the Field / lockdown, France, Covid-19, Île-de-France, coronavirus, youth, working-class neighborhoods, Paris region

The Postponed Tokyo 2020 Games: From Planning Conflicts to Covid

Raphaël Languillon-Aussel & translated by Oliver Waine — 2022-09-09T05:00:00Z

One of the many consequences of the Covid‑19 pandemic was the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, held in summer 2021; however, the health crisis was not the only issue to adversely affect the Games. Here, Raphaël Languillon-Aussel looks behind the scenes of Tokyo 2020 and examines the multiple conflicts and stakes that beset the Games.
On March 24, 2020, the Japanese central government announced its decision to postpone by one year the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games that were

- From the Field / coronavirus, development, Tokyo, Japan, Covid-19, Olympic Games

Double Jeopardy for Single-Parent Families: When Housing Conditions and Lockdown Collide

Laure Crepin & Fanny Bugeja-Bloch & translated by Oliver Waine — 2021-11-05T06:00:00Z

Single-parent families are among those households most affected by economic precarity and the current health crisis. In this paper, Laure Crepin and Fanny Bugeja-Bloch show that, in France, housing conditions for these families have been in decline since the early 2000s—long before the Covid lockdowns.
School closures and the shutdown of most shops and businesses, exhortations to work from home, short-time working (which has affected one in three private-sector employees in France), limits on

- From the Field / family, Covid-19, France, precarity, housing, coronavirus, inequalities, lockdown

Covid-19 Transformed New York's Destination Food Markets

Ivana Mellers — 2021-10-05T05:00:00Z

Ivana Mellers analyzes how New York's destination markets—key spaces of economic and social interactions—coped during the pandemic.
---- Series: New York Dossier: The Food Industry Faces the Covid-19 Pandemic Like supermarkets, restaurants, and coffee shops, New York City's three outdoor destination food markets—Queens Night Market, Bronx Night Market, and Smorgasburg—have been seriously impacted by the Covid‑19 pandemic. In March 2020, when organizers would ordinarily be planning their

- From the Field / Featured, market, markets, food, food culture, food industry, Covid-19, coronavirus, pandemic, New York, United States