World, Volume 1, Issue 1 (June 2020) – 5 articles

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought global mobility into the spotlight, with well over 100 countries having instituted either a full or partial lockdown by April 2020. Reduced mobility, whilst causing social and economic impacts, can also be beneficial for the environment and future studies will surely quantify such environmental gains. However, accurate quantification is intimately linked to good quality data on transport modal shares, as passenger cars and public transport have significantly different emissions profiles. Herein, we compile a currently lacking dataset on global modal transport shares for 131 countries. Notably, these are the countries covered by the Google Community Mobility Reports (plus Russia and China for their global relevance), thus allowing for a smooth integration between our dataset and the rich information offered by the Google Community Mobility Reports, thus enabling analysis of global emissions reductions due to mobility restrictions. Beyond the current pandemic, this novel dataset will be helpful to practitioners and academics alike working in transport research. Full article

This review article analyzes three major recent books (written by Robert Wuthnow, Arlie R. Hochschild, and James and Deborah Fallows, respectively) concerning ongoing political, economic and social change in United States’ rural communities to probe differing frames and claims among them. We contend these works together point to vital social and political forces that must receive increased attention if the communities they treat are to address the challenges confronting them successfully. Thereafter, we briefly and illustratively underscore the significance of these authors’ arguments using our own ongoing work in two small communities confronting catastrophic economic decline and social fissuring in Central Appalachia. Overall, we argue that an analytical approach that combines elements of Wuthnow’s sensitivity to demographic and scalar polarization and divides, coupled with Hochschild’s emphasis on opportunities to instill and call on empathetic imagination in development efforts, could assist these rural communities’ residents to understand more fully the dynamics at play within them and to craft strategies aimed at addressing those challenges. In particular, we contend that the Fallowses’ call for pragmatic interventions and partnership building must be accompanied by long-term efforts to overcome the fear engendered by the view that rural community life constitutes a consumerist zero-sum game, and the accompanying widespread belief in those jurisdictions that scapegoating and explicit or implicit racialized hierarchies represent reasonable responses to such anxieties. Full article

Sustainable development (SD) has become a crucial challenge globally, particularly in developing countries and cities. SD of peri-urban areas (PUA) has been tackled by a limited number of studies, unlike that of urban areas or cities. The PUAs of Greater Cairo (GC) are no exception; no study had addressed the state of the PUAs in terms of SD. Thus, this study sought to measure and evaluate the progress towards the SD in the PUAs of Greater Cairo, Egypt. Thirteen indicators were extracted from selected documents of the competent international organizations to measure and evaluate the performance of SD in the study area. The study resulted in a variety of charts and maps to explain the progress of SD in each municipality of the PUAs and then classify these municipalities based on their performance in sustainability indicators. The results revealed a wide gap between PUAs’ municipalities and the urban core of Greater Cairo. These results can help urban planners and decision-makers to better recognize the underdeveloped areas on the Greater Cairo peripheries, and hence, to develop the appropriate strategies and policies to improve SD in such areas. Full article