Toward a New Local: Introducing a Pandemic Framework for Everyday Care

This paper introduces a new conceptualization of local economization, one that is continuously unfolding throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Reconciling the ineffective response of the United States government to contain the virus from its introduction to the country in early 2020 with two simultaneous realities of life under lockdown - shrunken physical mobility and expanded virtual connectivity - it illustrates how Americans have grown more connected to themselves, their cities, and their communities. Viewed through the lens of human geography and psychogeography, this paper explores the impact of daily pandemic walks, increased digital access to neighbors and loved ones, and the stark inequalities of federal- and state-level economic aid on our embodied everyday experience of place and community. The result is the rise of mutual aid and other grassroots expressions of solidarity and care, the values, ethics, and efficiency of which must sustain into the post-pandemic world.