Author: TheConversation

By Shad Thielman, Lecturer in History, California State University San Marcos At some point in late April, COVID-19 claimed the life of its 58,221st victim in the United States. We do not know the victim’s name or the exact time of death, but the death was significant: It meant that the coronavirus had claimed more American lives than the entire Vietnam War. That conflict, which lasted from 1955 to 1975, resulted in the deaths of 58,220 Americans. COVID-19 surpassed that number in less than four months. Much like the nightly death counts that took place during the Vietnam era,...

By Richard leBrasseur, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Director, Green Infrastructure Performance Lab, Dalhousie University The COVID-19 pandemic has altered humans’ relationship with natural landscapes in ways that may be long-lasting. One of its most direct effects on people’s daily lives is reduced access to public parks. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued guidelines urging Americans to stay at home whenever feasible, and to avoid discretionary travel and gatherings of more than 10 people. Emergency declarations and stay-at-home orders vary from state to state, but many jurisdictions have closed state and county parks, as...

By Setha Low, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Geography and Psychology and Director of the Public Space Research Group, CUNY Graduate Center Social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic implies many painful losses. Among them are so-called “third places” – the restaurants, bars, gyms, houses of worship, barber shops and other places we frequent that are neither work nor home. The third place is a concept in sociology and urban planning that recognizes the role these semi-public, semi-private places play in fostering social association, community identity and civic engagement. In giving people a familiar setting for social interaction among regulars, they...

By Thomas Doherty, Professor of American Studies, Brandeis University Throughout much of the last century, a lethal and terrifying virus besieged America. Then, as now, the fear of contagion gripped ordinary Americans. And then, unlike now, a president displayed decisive leadership in fighting the virus, maintaining an unfailingly good humor and leaving the immunology to the experts. The scourge was infantile paralysis, or polio, and the president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was its most famous victim. First clinically described in the late 19th century and persisting deep into the 20th century, the virus invaded the nervous system and destroyed the...

By Paige Marta Skiba, Economist, Professor of Law, Vanderbilt University; Dalié Jiménez, Professor of Law, University of California, Irvine; Michelle McKinnon Miller, Associate Professor of Economics, Loyola Marymount University; Pamela Foohey, Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University; and Sara Sternberg Greene, Professor of Law, Duke University As more Americans lose all or part of their incomes and struggle with mounting debts, another crisis looms: a wave of personal bankruptcies. Bankruptcy can discharge or erase many types of debts and stop foreclosures, repossessions and wage garnishments. But our research shows the bankruptcy system is difficult to navigate even in normal...