Drawing on spatial analysis of local authority budgets, Mia Gray and Anna Barford highlight the uneven impacts of UK austerity. They argue that it has actively reshaped the relationship between central and local government, shrinking the capacity of the local state, increasing inequality between local governments, and exacerbating territorial injustice.Contemporary austerity in Britain has become both a powerful political discourse and an integrated policy of rapid cuts to state expenditure. Although there was considerable public debate about the wisdom of austerity -its pace and its scope -politicians and much of the popular media presented a narrative around austerity that invoked inevitability, the probable consequences of spooking financial markets, and the prudence of fiscal responsibility. Our research explores the spending cuts in local authority budgets in the UK and examines the relationship between the local and central government. We argue that austerity has actively reshaped the relationship between central and local government in Britain, shrinking the capacity of the local state, increasing inequality between local governments, and exacerbating territorial injustice.

During 2006, even in the poorest countries, women can expect to outlive men

This paper describes the Worldmapper Project, which makes use of novel visualization techniques to represent a broad variety of social and economic data about the countries of the world. The goal of the project is to use the map projections known as cartograms to depict comparisons and relations between different territories, and its execution raises many interesting design challenges that were not all apparent at the outset. We discuss the approaches taken towards these challenges, some of which may have considerably broad application. We conclude by commenting on the positive initial response to the worldmapper images published on the web, which we believe is due, at least in part, to the particular effectiveness of the cartogram as a tool for communicating quantitative geographic data.

The labour-intensive task of waste collection for recycling is critical to contemporary forms of corporate circularity. In low- and middle-income countries, waste pickers underpin the recycling loop of the circular economy. Where informality and working poverty are the norm, waste pickers typically receive little social protection, work in dangerous conditions, and earn low wages. Nevertheless, waste pickers’ work addresses multiscalar environmental problems from localised flooding of plastic-clogged waterways, to preventing the release of greenhouse gases when plastic is burnt. Here, we review recent academic and grey literature on waste picking, the social circular economy, and corporate circularity to understand the role and position of waste pickers in the contemporary circular economy. We explain how given the recent outcry against plastic waste, and subsequent corporate commitments to plastic recycling, there has been greater action on material flows than in support of the people who move these flows. Overall, the corporate response remains limited, with a general preference for recycling over redesign and only a fifth of packaging accounted for. Based on this review, we present two models. The first is a hierarchy of plastic recycling showing the foundational role of waste pickers in the recycled plastics supply chain. As plastics move up the hierarchy, their value increases and working conditions improve. We also propose a new model for a socially restorative circular economy which provides fair pay, safe working conditions, social protection, legal rights, voice, respect, services, and education. Some governments, co-operatives, non-governmental organisations, and businesses are already working towards this—and their work offers pathways towards a new standard of fair trade recycled materials. We argue that for true sustainability and the best version of circularity to be achieved, deeply ingrained social challenges must be resolved.