Jo GuldiIn the Fall of 2020, when groping cautions filled newspapers and universities announced hasty measures to take their history seminars online, I spent a hurried week re-writing my syllabi on British empire to investigate the history of disease. Across the British empire, among the most fearsome epidemics were the plagues of malaria and cholera. Both have moral lessons to teach present-day readers about the shape of disease. Part of what they can tell us about is the importance of shared...
Fernando Carrión Mena
A Modern Debt Jubilee
Steve KeenOur global culture prioritizes individualist values, at the expense of a civilized, healthy society and planet, with vested interests and neoclassical economists exacerbating the situation. Societies with advanced levels of industrialization and knowledge still ignore proposals to ensure shared prosperity such as the Universal Basic Income. That means the refusal to assure someone to survive in society and enable more innovation to take place, while still allowing those whose...
The post-pandemic city: transnational cooperation and public policy (Part II)
Colleen Boland | Rafael HeiberDec, 2020*The second number of the inaugural volume of metapolis further explores the titular theme «The post-pandemic city: transnational cooperation and public policy» in light of almost a year of experience. Communities have confronted not only the public health and economic impacts of the global crisis, but also a dramatic social reckoning precipitated by increasing inequalities, made poignantly visible via the effects and measures surrounding the pandemic....
Roaming noise and other unwanted sounds. Protecting the public domain
Joost SmiersIt is a majestic sight. Very low, above the centuries-old center of Amsterdam, immense large planes descend towards Schiphol Airport. This spectacle is accompanied by sound. Strangely enough, that hardly bothers me, probably because it is not so hard as it is closer to Schiphol. That seems strange because there are many types of sound, including soft ones, that I cannot handle. I know people in my area who are crazy about it. However, it could be worse. At the wrong time in the...
A new, «glocal» social pact for recovery
Rebeca GrynspanDec, 2020*As the year 2021 begins, the crisis carries on. We continue to analyze the multiple consequences of a pandemic that has put our societies in check and exposed systemic vulnerabilities. Everyone was of course conscious of the many short-term challenges faced by countries throughout the world, especially developing countries. In the wake of the greatest recession in centuries, we have experienced profound setbacks resulting in poverty, inequality, and increasing school...
Science and democracy: institutions in search of a sociopolitical identity
Jesús Rey Rocha | Emilio Muñoz RuizIt is frequently either implicitly or explicitly implied that science and democracy go hand in hand, that both are based on and uphold critical thinking, yet in science there are no dogmas or absolute truths. In fact, science and technology do not always go hand in hand with, or remain rooted in, free and critical thinking in the democratic sense. One can theorize about the origin of the universe, discover and manufacture a vaccine, or implement the...
Old challenges in a new context: the pandemic accelerating city multilateralism
Felipe Llamas [1][1]I would like to thank Eugene Zapata-Garesché, Managing Director for Latin America at 100 Resilient Cities (100RC); Agustí Fernández de Losada, Director of the Global Cities program at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB); and Rodrigo Perpetuo, Executive Secretary of ICLEI South America, for their contributions. They are founding members of PHARE Global Territories. This article expands on the authors' thesis published in America Quarterly «How Mayors Are...
The Global Transurban System: Forms It Takes and New Challenges
COVID-19 has become a fundamentally urban disease: social interaction, so characteristic of cities, has put them all at the epicenter of this pandemic. Through the local integration process it is possible for us to identify the main assemblages that constitute the Global Urban Network. Recognizing the inter-urban and trans-urban logics means exploring an unchaperoned horizontal cooperation, and the transformation of the city-state relationship, both nationally and internationally.
Work After Coronavirus
The economic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis have been crippling, and unemployment is rampant. Up until now, the economy has been divided rather arbitrarily into a primary agriculture and extractive industry, a secondary manufacturing sector, and a tertiary «service» sector. The latter sector has become more and more bloated, with many unjustified jobs. Meanwhile, the pandemic has taught us that authoritarian and city-centric labor regimes are unnecessary. Work has the potential to be transformed into a new type of activity, an autonomous, productive play that allows for healthier, freer societies.
Cities, COVID-19 and Commons in Latin America
Cities derive their value from commons: goods, benefits, or services collectively, used, created and preserved, and are governed by collective action. In the case of Latin American cities and megacities in particular, collective action and sharing of resources has taken place during the COVID-19 crisis. However, a history of colonialism, neoliberal policies and inequality make this region particularly vulnerable during the pandemic. This article traces the reasons why now, more than ever, the Latin American region must learn from this crisis in order to build more resilient and equal societies.