Metropolitics

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

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

Between Two Crises: New York's Artisanal Food Startup Founders

Nga Than — 2021-09-28T05:00:00Z

The Covid‑19 pandemic forced a pause to a decade of growth for New York City's artisanal food startups. Strategies employed by their founders reveal the precarity of their circumstances and the importance of support from city government.
---- Series: New York Dossier: The Food Industry Faces the Covid‑19 Pandemic Food startups—small-scale artisanal food preparation enterprises—have proliferated in many global cities since the 2007–2008 financial crisis. In New York City, food manufacturing

- From the Field / food industry, food culture, food, artisans, start-ups, businesses, manufacturing, precarity, Covid-19, coronavirus, pandemic, United States, New York

Covid-19 in Seine-Saint-Denis (2/2): How the Health System Exacerbates Inequalities

Audrey Mariette & Laure Pitti & translated by Oliver Waine — 2021-09-24T05:00:00Z

Although public health measures and local solidarity have helped mitigate the impact of the coronavirus epidemic, the département of Seine-Saint-Denis, whose health infrastructure has been profoundly weakened by reforms in recent decades, was more severely affected than other parts of France.
The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed and increased the accumulation of social inequalities in Seine-Saint-Denis: it aggravates the already degraded health status of the urbanized and racialized working

- From the Field / Covid-19, coronavirus, pandemic, health, inequalities, socio-spatial inequalities, Seine-Saint-Denis, Paris region, France, Île-de-France

Can the New Economy Survive without Coffee Shops (and Their Wi‑Fi)?

Thomas R. Chung — 2021-09-21T05:00:00Z

Thomas R. Chung argues that coffee shops play an important role in the creative and tech sectors of the knowledge-based new economy, and shows how the pandemic has disrupted this important node in New York City's agglomeration economy.
---- Series: New York Dossier: The Food Industry Faces the Covid‑19 Pandemic The Covid‑19 pandemic hit close to home for many New Yorkers who depend on the hospitality industry, as dining out and drinking are integral parts of the social, cultural, and

- From the Field / coffee, food, food culture, coronavirus, Covid-19, pandemic, agglomeration economies, coffee shops, tech sector, knowledge-based economy, New York, United States, tech economy, creative industries, new economy

Covid-19 in Seine-Saint-Denis (1/2): When the Pandemic Entrenches Health Inequalities

Audrey Mariette & Laure Pitti & translated by Oliver Waine — 2021-09-17T05:00:00Z

The Seine-Saint-Denis département, to the northeast of Paris, was hit particularly hard by the coronavirus pandemic. In the first of two articles, Audrey Mariette and Laure Pitti present their analysis of the epidemic within the département, highlighting its impact in terms of regional inequalities in health.
From the very beginning of the first lockdown, on March 17, 2020, a number of French media outlets reported on the social inequalities that were emerging in the face of the current

- From the Field / Covid-19, coronavirus, pandemic, health, inequalities, socio-spatial inequalities, Seine-Saint-Denis, Île-de-France, Paris region, France

We Have Been Here Before: Crisis, Response, and the Stasis of Urban Policy

Robert W. Lake — 2021-06-29T05:00:00Z

The disruptions produced by the global pandemic have spawned predictions of sweeping change that are unlikely to materialize. An example from a century ago explains why, and what we can do about it.
The front-page headline in the New York Times on May 6, 2021, optimistically announced a turning point in the ravages of the Covid‑19 pandemic in the United States. “Americans have entered a new, hopeful phase of the pandemic,” the Times reported, ushering in a “newfound optimism […] buoyed by a

- Essays / crisis, coronavirus, Covid-19, pandemic, history, urban policy, war, social change

Inciting Hopes for the Future: Civic Activism in London, Mumbai, and Paris Amid the Covid‑19 Crisis

2021-06-08T05:00:00Z

Ethnographic research in London, Mumbai, and Paris during Covid‑19 lockdowns reveals how civic associations filled the void left by state withdrawal and offered visions of hope for socially excluded populations.
Our current global “human, economic and social crisis” (UN 2020) was driven by a deadly virus and deepened by governments' dedication to market-oriented solutions and to disempowering people deemed to be obstacles to those solutions. The neoliberal state's initial reactions to the

- From the Field / associations, lockdown, Covid-19, coronavirus, activism, civic organizing, civic activism, London, Paris, Mumbai, pandemic, India, United Kingdom

Covid‑19 in China: A Civil Society in the Making

Beiyi Hu — 2021-05-18T05:00:00Z

Beiyi Hu examines responses to Covid‑19 in China, focusing on civil-society efforts at the social, political, and policy levels that emerged in Wuhan during the pandemic. She shows that, even in state-dominated Chinese civil society, there was widespread self-organized social and political participation that arose from below.
This article explores responses to the Covid‑19 pandemic in China and examines the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on the changing operation of Chinese civil society.

- From the Field / China, Wuhan, Hubei province, Covid-19, coronavirus, pandemic, civil society, participation, policymaking, public policy, political participation, social participation, mobilization

A Social Portrait of the Subprime Crisis

Camille François & translated by Oliver Waine — 2021-05-14T05:00:00Z

What have been the social and urban consequences of the subprime mortgage crisis, and what lessons can be learned and applied to the current health and economic crisis? Isaac Martin and Christopher Niedt's 2015 work, Foreclosed America, paints a sociological portrait of households evicted from their homes in the United States.
The economic consequences of the Covid‑19 pandemic invite comparisons with previous global economic crises, not least the recent subprime crisis. This crisis, which

- Reviews / subprime, crisis, financial crisis, housing crisis, Covid-19, coronavirus, pandemic, United States, foreclosure, evictions, inequalities