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This article makes the case that electric micromobilities (EMMs) are the site of a moral panic and employs the lens of mobility justice to explain it. Through analysis of scholarly and media discourse, interviews with, and social media content produced by, EMM riders (eriders), and the auto ethnographic experiences of the lead author as an electric unicycle rider in daily life, as a participant in online and offline "erider" communities, and as a food delivery worker, we reinforce the conclusion that alternate mobilities face an uphill battle in gaining legitimacy and inclusion in transportation policy and infrastructure. While this is not a new finding—alternate mobilities have a long history of being demonized and excluded—this article offers insight into how individuals who find themselves unwitting scapegoats in conflicts over public space consciously engage in deliberate actions to resist EMM panic and achieve greater mobility justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is situated within the conceptual lineage of St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton's groundbreaking Black Metropolis model. However, it provides a new way of considering this intellectual heritage. The analysis suggests that African American traditions of Pan-Africanism have not been expansively addressed in their magnitude on Black urban sociology. Drake and Cayton's theorization is reconfigured as it exists within a Pan-African value system for the contemporary Black (Diasporic) city. The research presents "unsung" Pan-African tropes that are central to the maintenance of the Black city's identity and psychological cohesion. If the mind is the "primary battlefield" as Garvey insists, then it is important to note the (beneficial) psychological impact that African American redemption and the Pan- African Metropolis can bestow on African Americans. The discussion locates Pan-Africanism as a tangible operating mechanism on African Americans' lifestyle, mental health, and (Africanized) identities within Detroit's Black community. Field observations of Detroit's African World Festival connect these festival spaces as they characterize and drive the city's identity, psychology, economic considerations, and ultimately, Pan-African groundings. The sustainability of an Afrocentric philosophy and psychology has enhanced the Black city in the manifestation of a distinctive cultural political economy. The Pan African Metropolis emerged during Detroit's Black Arts Movement (the 1970s of my youth). To this end, the article pushes back against "the lie" which overgeneralizes African Americans in a Black deficit homogeneity, whereas the "alleged Black American monolith" is not connected to any operating African continuum in their daily lives. Plain language summary: The Pan African Metropolis: Pan African Lives in a Pan African City All cities have a psychological effect on their inhabitants. How does a Pan-African value system shape the distinctive character and mindset of a city? This article attempts to answer this question. The current research on Detroit's African World Festival looks at how it connects to a larger Africanized World of Detroit (from the 1970s to the present). It locates and celebrates African Americans in Detroit who live devoted, daily Pan-African lives. It voices how the city has benefited from the norm of its Pan-African leadership. The discussion fills a needed gap as it looks at how contemporary customs of Pan-Africanism have made a positive impact on African Americans' lifestyle and mental health who live in Detroit, Michigan. The argument presents unique Pan-African values, which are referred to as Pan African tropes. These tropes have uniquely shaped Detroit's Black community's psychological makeup and distinctive personality. From this perspective, Pan-Africanism is discussed here from a holistic perspective for African Americans. It is considered deliberately as a mindset-shaping and Black progress philosophy in the foundation of the city. The cultural agency of Detroit has created an unsung tradition of Black placemaking through African heritage connections, celebrations, and preservation. Garvey insists what has made African Americans reject their African heritage is brainwashing from white/European inducement of continued mental slavery, as Bob Marley captures Garvey's most comprehensive message in Redemption Song, "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds". This is why Garvey tells us the primary battlefield is the mind. Ultimately, the mental health of African Americans is dependent upon the recovery of their historical dignity, and a tranformative Africana Studies education, and thus, more accurate knowledge as it applies to them. Thus, Pan-Africanism has a seriously unrecognized psychological benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the ways in which lesbians' economic and intimate lives are closely intertwined amid neoliberal development in the urban landscape. Previous research on queer urban life has primarily drawn attention to commodified gay neighbourhoods and other sites for sexual consumption, which are often marketised as part of a liberal and queer-friendly urban landscape, in Euro-American contexts. Such a focus is not adequate, however, to capture the complex interplay between intimacy and commodification in contemporary societies. Drawing upon interviews with 35 lesbians in Beijing, this study shows how the market is experienced by lesbians as a site of queer agency and vulnerability under neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics. The findings reveal 'commodified forms of intimacy', through which lesbians actively engage in the labour market and (queer-targeted) pink market in order to develop their intimate relations. Meanwhile, 'intimatised forms of commodification' illustrate how women's gendered and sexual expressions are closely policed and evaluated in the workplace as a site of both economic production and the reproduction of social norms. Participants were conscious of their vulnerable position as women and lesbians in the marketplace, but they were active in strategising ways to navigate urban landscapes of heteronormativity and gender inequalities. This article helps to develop a deeper understanding of the complicated and contradictory impacts of neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics on queer communities. It contributes to urban sociology and sexuality studies by mapping the multiple connections between commodified relations and intimate relations in the neoliberal city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Stacked Decks: Building Inspectors and the Reproduction of Urban Inequality" by Robin Bartram explores the role of building inspectors in perpetuating urban inequality. The book highlights how inspectors exercise discretion in their decision-making, influenced by their perceptions of a neighborhood's trajectory and an owner's worthiness of leniency. Bartram combines qualitative fieldwork and statistical analyses to provide an intimate view of inspectors in Chicago's Buildings Department. The book also discusses the social, economic, and historical factors that contribute to urban inequality in Chicago and proposes solutions to address these issues. Overall, "Stacked Decks" offers valuable insights into the impact of building inspections on urban communities and is recommended for those interested in urban planning and sociology. [Extracted from the article]

This study draws from W.E.B. Du Bois’ urban sociology in The Philadelphia Negro, Darkwater, and Black Reconstruction in America to offer a conceptual foil to present-day broken windows policing. We suggest that the Chicago School’s ecological model of urban life facilitated a broken windows approach to policing by labeling people and places as disordered but also that a Du Boisian approach—what we call “mended windows”—offers new ways of addressing underlying inequalities that reproduce harm. After drawing out the distinct intellectual trajectories of these two approaches, we turn to two contemporary cases of racialized police violence—Syracuse, NY, and the Antelope Valley, CA—to illustrate the theoretical and methodological significance of a Du Boisian mended windows analysis of urban policing across time and place. We conclude by considering what this approach might have foretold about contemporary movements to defund policing in favor of investing in community vitality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists have shown how displacement reproduces inequality among U.S. renters. Less is known about the experiences of renters prior to displacement, or how the trade-offs that renters adopt to avoid moves also stratify families. This article addresses this gap by examining how renters with few housing alternatives manage landlord neglect in routine maintenance. Using interviews with 131 non-Hispanic white and Latina/o, low- and middle-income renters living in Los Angeles, I find that unaffordable rental markets embed disadvantaged families, particularly low-income Latina/o immigrants, into substandard indoor living environments. Unable or reluctant to move, renters endure a process that I call negotiating neglect, which encompasses decision making around repair requests, following up with repair delays, investing personal funds into maintenance, and managing the health consequences of disrepair. Negotiating neglect demands substantial time, cognitive labor, and, at times, financial resources, and for some families, it is a chronic stressor. Taken together, these findings advance prior research on how unaffordable rental markets widen inequalities among families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutional theories of ‘local area effects’ hypothesise that local area differences in organisational resources are an important feature of inequality in individuals’ residential environments. However, while the organisational dimension of local areas has been identified as an important research priority within urban sociology, empirical work remains limited, with charitable organisations particularly under-researched. Therefore, a key question remains unanswered: why do charities in more deprived local areas have higher dissolution rates, reinforcing a lower prevalence of charities compared with less deprived areas? This article focuses on this research problem. It shows that volunteer leadership succession is less prominent in more deprived local areas, and that this more limited leadership succession helps explain why charities in more deprived areas experience higher dissolution rates. The results promote understanding of a mechanism underlying local area differences in organisational dynamics that lead to persistent differences in institutional resources between more and less deprived local areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]