This Special Issue of the PIMA Bulletin is to recognise and honour Chris Duke, who has stepped down as founding PIMA Bulletin Editor, after seven years. Under Chris' watch 45 Issues of the PIMA Bulletin have been published. An outstanding achievement. They are all archived and easily accessible on the PIMA website www.pimanetwork.com/bulletins. They are an amazing resource for all scholars, activists, practitioners of ALE within lifelong learning perspectives and approaches.

Oxford and Canterbury, 2 historic cities among several others in the UK who are developing policies to introduce a 15-minute city approach to their future development plans, are running into a barrage of criticism from conspiracy theorists who claim that such proposals amount to ‘environmental lockdown’ designed to confine people to within a certain distance from their homes, and a plot to attack personal freedoms.

In this issue we feature 9 current papers on the theme of social capital, chosen by Fabio Sabatini (Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”):

Local governments and officials can play essential roles in shaping urban environments in ways that are conducive to collective action that slows the rate of global warming.  Or, if their local governance mechanisms are not designed and implemented thoughtfully and effectively, they can also contribute to a range of problems and obstacles to such action.