Social distancing has been adopted as a strategy to contain the advance of the pandemic until specific solutions to combat the virus are available. Many economic sectors and social activities need to continue despite the viruses, and most social distancing policies disregard individual choices, resulting in greater or lesser adherence to isolation. In this paper, we characterize the differentiation of access to essential activities within Brazilian cities during social distancing and the intention to maintain behavior changes concerning these activities in the postpandemic period. The results showed that the behavior regarding essential activities during the pandemic is not independent of variables associated with pre-pandemic travel patterns, isolation conditions, and socioeconomic factors. Post-pandemic intention proved to be statistically dependent on factors associated with the activities’ characteristics and experiences during the pandemic. Accessibility-oriented planning can guide urban and transportation policies more equitably through the identification of the most affected groups by activity disruption. At the same time, the incorporation of new routines less dependent on displacement offers opportunities to review public space.

This article aims to understand the problem of accessibility to work opportunities and its relationship with mobility in the city of Belo Horizonte. For this purpose, a method was applied to evaluate, at a strategic level, problems of unequal and inequitable distribution of accessibility and mobility (GARCIA et al., 2018), based on spatial analysis techniques and ethical theories of social justice. The methodology consists of the characterization and diagnosis of distributions of accessibility and mobility problems, based on the relationships between factors contributing to these problems’ occurrence and their characteristics. For this purpose, the selected indicators were submitted to exploratory analysis, considering non-spatial and spatial approaches. Belo Horizonte presents uneven and unequal distributions of accessibility and mobility to work opportunities. The levels of accessibility to work are higher in the central business district, where there is a concentration of jobs and shorter travel times compared to the rest of the municipality. In contrast, mobility has a very dispersed pattern of spatial distribution. Critical zones were delimited from unequal distribution in the diagnostic phase, based on sufficiency parameters for each transport mode. Also, analyses of the relationships between accessibility and mobility and the urban attributes contributing to the uneven and unequal distribution of opportunities were carried out. The results of this work can support the formulation and prioritization of public policies.

By 2050, there will be at least nine billion people in the world to be fed, and two-thirds of them will live in cities. A before-after assessment of an urban horticulture scenario is presented to address the negative impacts of goods distribution within cities. A baseline scenario for the current food system is compared with the proposed one, adapted to local production and consumption through a case study for Belo Horizonte (Brazil). A Life Cycle Assessment was considered to estimate the potential environmental impact reduction by implementing a local production and consumption model. The Ecoinvent dataset 3.5, exiobase2, and the CML impacts methods were used. The potential of global warming, acidification, photochemical oxidation, and human toxicity was determined for both scenarios. Moreover, fuel, infrastructure, and vehicle consumption concerning the changes among the settings were compared. All categories of environmental impact presented significant reductions regarding the changes among scenarios for the distribution of vegetables. This paper brings a phenomenological contribution to Belo Horizonte’s city, which can be considered to subsidize public policy decision-making to support urban agriculture