Remote Working and New Working Spaces During the COVID-19 Pandemic—Insights from EU and Abroad

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the rise of remote working worldwide and less central areas have become more and more attractive for these workers. Consequently, remote workers started working from home, in new working spaces, and from everywhere. These changes have affected workers' wellbeing, and cities, peripheral are rural areas. The chapter explores why people decided to keep working remotely even after the pandemic restrictions were cancelled. Furthermore, we give an empirical snapshot of the actual situation of remote workers and how this has and will change geographical patterns. The impact of remote working on wellbeing is described, according to the literature, and some thoughts on how remote working affects the future of coworking spaces and hybrid spaces are presented. © 2023, The Author(s).

#WashTheHate: Understanding the Prevalence of Anti-Asian Prejudice on Twitter During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Prejudice and hate directed toward Asian individuals has increased in prevalence and salience during the COVID-19 pandemic, with notable rises in physical violence. Concurrently, as many governments enacted stay-at-home mandates, the spread of anti-Asian content increased in online spaces, including social media. In the present study, we investigated temporal and geographical patterns in social media content relevant to anti-Asian prejudice during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the Twitter Data Collection API, we queried over 13 million tweets posted between January 30, 2020, and April 30, 2021, for both negative (e.g., #kungflu) and positive (e.g., #stopAAPIhate) hashtags and keywords related to anti-Asian prejudice. In a series of descriptive analyses, we found differences in the frequency of negative and positive keywords based on geographic location. Using burst detection, we also identified distinct increases in negative and positive content in relation to key political tweets and events. These largely exploratory analyses shed light on the role of social media in the expression and proliferation of prejudice as well as positive responses online. © 2022 IEEE.

The dynamics of world economy geography and the role of China in economic globalization

From the perspective of economic geography, this paper studies the changing spatial pattern of world economy and China's role in different waves of economic globalization. Firstly, this study finds that the geographical pattern of world economy changes from "core-periphery" to "chain-reconfiguration", and to current "network-imbalance". Meanwhile the driving force of economic globalization shifts from "trade globalization" to "manufacturing globalization". At present, "multiple globalization" is involving into a new engine to driving the development of economic globalization. We then discuss that how China changes its role in economic globalization by changing modes of strategic coupling. We argue that the role transition of China breaks the traditional developing path which developed countries set for developing countries and theoretical spatial order put forward by classical industry gradient transfer, bringing new restructuring power and possibility for changing pattern of globalization. Finally, we discuss the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on the development of economic globalization and the development trend of economic globalization in the post-pandemic era. Based on the analysis, we come up with some suggestions regarding to the potential development paths of China under the background of economic globalization. © 2022, Science Press. All right reserved.

Spatial inequalities of COVID-19 incidence and associated socioeconomic risk factors in Portugal

COVID-19 hit the world in a sudden and uneven way. Scientific community has provided strong evidence about socioeconomic characteristics of the territory associated with the geographical pattern of COVID-19 incidence. Still, the role played by these factors differs between study areas. Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) models were applied to explore the spatially varying association between age-standardized COVID-19 incidence rate in 2020 and socioeconomic conditions in Portugal, at the municipality level. The spatial context was defined as a function of the number of neighbours;the bandwidth was determined through AIC. Prior, the validity of the GWR was assessed through ordinary least squares models. Border proximity, proportion of overcrowded living quarters, persons employed in manufacturing establishments and persons employed in construction establishments were found to be significant predictors. It was possible to observe that municipalities are affected differently by the same factor, and that this varying influence has identifiable geographical patterns, the role of each analysed factor varies importantly across the country. This study provides useful insights for policymakers for targeted interventions and for proper identification of risk factors.