The relationship between population density and COVID-19 transmission remains ambiguous, with conflicting findings challenging urban planning. This work addresses the issue through a multi-faceted review of 250 articles (2020–2024), categorizing studies by geographical scale, tracing thematic evolution across pre- and post-vaccine periods via keyword analysis, and synthesizing policy recommendations with a zero-shot classification model. The findings confirm the positive density-transmission link is robust only at local scales. The research focus evolved from broad pre-vaccine correlations to a post-vaccine emphasis on community vulnerability and the built environment, while types of policy recommendations also depended heavily on the scale. It is argued that the debate must shift from whether density is inherently risky to how to manage its context-specific challenges through scale-sensitive research and policy.
{"title":"Density and disease: A systematic review of COVID-19 transmission and policy across scales and time","authors":"Francisco Benita","doi":"10.1111/cag.70054","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cag.70054","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The relationship between population density and COVID-19 transmission remains ambiguous, with conflicting findings challenging urban planning. This work addresses the issue through a multi-faceted review of 250 articles (2020–2024), categorizing studies by geographical scale, tracing thematic evolution across pre- and post-vaccine periods via keyword analysis, and synthesizing policy recommendations with a zero-shot classification model. The findings confirm the positive density-transmission link is robust only at local scales. The research focus evolved from broad pre-vaccine correlations to a post-vaccine emphasis on community vulnerability and the built environment, while types of policy recommendations also depended heavily on the scale. It is argued that the debate must shift from whether density is inherently risky to how to manage its context-specific challenges through scale-sensitive research and policy.</p>","PeriodicalId":47619,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Geographer-Geographe Canadien","volume":"70 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146130116","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Catherine Leviten-Reid, Brenda Parker, Tayyab Shah
Women face gendered and intersectional disparities in caregiving duties, income, and wealth, and exposure to gender-based violence, and also disproportionately live in non-market housing. As such, they especially benefit from infrastructures of care. We examine to what extent these infrastructures are locally available to those living in non-market housing in three Canadian communities. We explore both the presence of non-market housing units and the socio-demographic characteristics of places in which this housing is located, and how these may be associated with resources in the urban environment that value, enable, and support caring. We find that most neighbourhoods with non-market rentals are located in places with moderate infrastructures of care, rather than being situated in care deserts or care oases, concepts we introduce in this paper. Similarly, non-market housing neighbourhoods with higher levels of disadvantage have moderate infrastructures of care in place, but some are actually care deserts. We also provide methodological and conceptual suggestions for further assessing infrastructures of care.
{"title":"Care oasis or care deserts? Mapping non-market housing, neighbourhood characteristics and infrastructures of care in three Canadian communities","authors":"Catherine Leviten-Reid, Brenda Parker, Tayyab Shah","doi":"10.1111/cag.70055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cag.70055","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Women face gendered and intersectional disparities in caregiving duties, income, and wealth, and exposure to gender-based violence, and also disproportionately live in non-market housing. As such, they especially benefit from infrastructures of care. We examine to what extent these infrastructures are locally available to those living in non-market housing in three Canadian communities. We explore both the presence of non-market housing units and the socio-demographic characteristics of places in which this housing is located, and how these may be associated with resources in the urban environment that value, enable, and support caring. We find that most neighbourhoods with non-market rentals are located in places with moderate infrastructures of care, rather than being situated in care deserts or care oases, concepts we introduce in this paper. Similarly, non-market housing neighbourhoods with higher levels of disadvantage have moderate infrastructures of care in place, but some are actually care deserts. We also provide methodological and conceptual suggestions for further assessing infrastructures of care.</p>","PeriodicalId":47619,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Geographer-Geographe Canadien","volume":"70 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cag.70055","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146091123","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Dans un contexte régional alimenté par la multiplication des tensions autour de l'accès, de l'usage et du contrôle des ressources naturelles, les mangroves de Douala se révèlent être un terrain emblématique pour apprécier la conflictualité socio-environnementale à l'échelle urbaine. En mobilisant le cadre d'analyse stratégique de la gestion environnementale de Mermet (2011) et une méthodologie mixte, combinant analyse spatiale diachronique (1990-2024), observations de terrain et 27 entretiens semi-dirigés, cette étude met en évidence une perte estimée à plus de 7300 hectares de mangroves en 34 ans. En mettant en lumière la diversité des modèles d'action (organisés, dispersés et discrètes), les résultats démontrent que cette dégradation ne résulte pas uniquement de l'urbanisation informelle et du manque de régulation étatique. En effet, elle s'inscrit dans une configuration d'acteurs pluriels, porteurs de visions concurrentes et évoluant dans un cadre de gouvernance multi-niveaux fragmenté. Au-delà du constat écologique, la gestion des mangroves apparaît à Douala comme une arène politique, révélatrice des tensions entre développement et conservation. Cette étude invite à repenser la gouvernance de ces espaces à travers des dispositifs collaboratifs capables de dépasser les logiques sectorielles pour construire des accords partagés sur l'avenir de ces écosystèmes stratégiques.
{"title":"Gouverner des écosystèmes en tension: Conflictualités et dynamiques d'acteurs dans les mangroves de Douala (Cameroun)","authors":"Roussel Lalande Teguia Kenmegne, Roxane Lavoie, Jean-François Bissonnette","doi":"10.1111/cag.70053","DOIUrl":"10.1111/cag.70053","url":null,"abstract":"<p><i>Dans un contexte régional alimenté par la multiplication des tensions autour de l'accès, de l'usage et du contrôle des ressources naturelles, les mangroves de Douala se révèlent être un terrain emblématique pour apprécier la conflictualité socio-environnementale à l'échelle urbaine. En mobilisant le cadre d'analyse stratégique de la gestion environnementale de Mermet (2011) et une méthodologie mixte, combinant analyse spatiale diachronique (1990-2024), observations de terrain et 27 entretiens semi-dirigés, cette étude met en évidence une perte estimée à plus de 7300 hectares de mangroves en 34 ans. En mettant en lumière la diversité des modèles d'action (organisés, dispersés et discrètes), les résultats démontrent que cette dégradation ne résulte pas uniquement de l'urbanisation informelle et du manque de régulation étatique. En effet, elle s'inscrit dans une configuration d'acteurs pluriels, porteurs de visions concurrentes et évoluant dans un cadre de gouvernance multi-niveaux fragmenté. Au-delà du constat écologique, la gestion des mangroves apparaît à Douala comme une arène politique, révélatrice des tensions entre développement et conservation. Cette étude invite à repenser la gouvernance de ces espaces à travers des dispositifs collaboratifs capables de dépasser les logiques sectorielles pour construire des accords partagés sur l'avenir de ces écosystèmes stratégiques</i>.</p>","PeriodicalId":47619,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Geographer-Geographe Canadien","volume":"70 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cag.70053","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145986775","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Victoria Fast, Marjan Jahanbani, Russell Copley, Maayan Ziv
Canada has committed to eliminating accessibility barriers by 2040, yet municipalities lack clear, comparable evidence on where building access breaks down. To address this gap, we set out to produce and test a participatory, city-scale method to measure building accessibility of businesses. We report results from Mapping Our Cities for All, a disabled-led assessment of public-facing businesses in Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa, and selected small Alberta communities (n=13,804). To evaluate how well our sample reflects local business landscapes, we compared our results with Statistics Canada's Open Database of Businesses by dissemination area and used a Mann–Whitney U test; within the study cities, distributions did not differ, supporting local representativeness. We then profiled accessibility at the city level and identified clusters using hot spot analysis (Getis–Ord Gi*), Global Moran's I, and local indicators of spatial association (LISA) applied to perceived ratings (accessible, partially accessible, not accessible). Across sites, fewer than half of audited businesses were rated fully accessible, with statistically significant clustering of lower accessibility in dense commercial districts. By pairing community audits with standard spatial statistics, we provide a practical baseline for tracking progress toward a barrier-free Canada.
{"title":"Mapping Our Cities for All: A participatory baseline of business accessibility in Canada","authors":"Victoria Fast, Marjan Jahanbani, Russell Copley, Maayan Ziv","doi":"10.1111/cag.70046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cag.70046","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Canada has committed to eliminating accessibility barriers by 2040, yet municipalities lack clear, comparable evidence on where building access breaks down. To address this gap, we set out to produce and test a participatory, city-scale method to measure building accessibility of businesses. We report results from Mapping Our Cities for All, a disabled-led assessment of public-facing businesses in Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa, and selected small Alberta communities (n=13,804). To evaluate how well our sample reflects local business landscapes, we compared our results with Statistics Canada's Open Database of Businesses by dissemination area and used a Mann–Whitney U test; within the study cities, distributions did not differ, supporting local representativeness. We then profiled accessibility at the city level and identified clusters using hot spot analysis (Getis–Ord Gi*), Global Moran's I, and local indicators of spatial association (LISA) applied to perceived ratings (accessible, partially accessible, not accessible). Across sites, fewer than half of audited businesses were rated fully accessible, with statistically significant clustering of lower accessibility in dense commercial districts. By pairing community audits with standard spatial statistics, we provide a practical baseline for tracking progress toward a barrier-free Canada.</p>","PeriodicalId":47619,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Geographer-Geographe Canadien","volume":"70 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cag.70046","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145993983","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A cold colonialism: Modern exploration and the Canadian North By \u0000 Tina Adcock, Vancouver: UBC Press. 2025. pp. 402. pages. $110 (hardback). ISBN 9780774870122","authors":"Tyler McCreary","doi":"10.1111/cag.70051","DOIUrl":"10.1111/cag.70051","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47619,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Geographer-Geographe Canadien","volume":"70 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145963976","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}