The next 30 years: planning cities beyond mobility?

Figures & data

Table 1. The emerging vision illustrated through alternative narratives and experiments at different scales.

Scale and component	Alternative narratives	Experiments
STREET: Convivial streets	From streets as regulated traffic channels to streets as self-regulating public spaces: – Streets for people, not for traffic (Gehl 2010; Bertolini 2020) – The street as ecology (Mehta 2015) – The street as quintessential social public space (Mehta 2014)	City street experiments: intentional, temporary change(s) of street use, regulation and/or form, aimed at exploring systemic change in urban mobility – away from ‘streets for traffic’, and towards ‘streets for people’.• Example: intersection repairs, parklets, play streets and ciclovias/open streets (Bertolini 2020); street experiments spurred by the pandemic (Combs and Pardo 2021)
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Accessibility by proximity	– From planning for mobility to planning for accessibility (Handy 2005) – From accessibility by mobility to accessibility by proximity (Pajares et al. 2021)	Complementary interventions: (1) introducing and/or maintaining essential everyday facilities (e.g. schools, shops, parks, public services) at walking and cycling distance from homes, and (2) improving the quality (e.g. safety, comfort, attractiveness) of walking and cycling routes from homes to essential everyday facilities.• Example: Paris’ 15-minute city approach (Moreno et al. 2021)
CITY/REGION: Diffused/Ubiquitous TOD	– From compact cities vs sprawling suburbs to diverse and connected rural-urban landscapes (Westerink et al. 2013) – From material and symbolic physical separation to socio-ecological integration of the urban, the peri-urban and the countryside (Keil and Addie 2015)	Complementary interventions: (1) introducing new sustainable transport mode combinations such as the train-bike (Kager, Bertolini, and Te Brömmelstroet 2016) and (2) promoting context-sensitive land use concentration and mixing in the suburbs and the countryside (Westerink et al. 2013; Staricco and Vitale Brovarone 2020)
ALL SCALES: Car as an option	– From car as a necessity to car as an option, as in multimodal urban development (Bertolini and Le Clercq 2003) – From universal car ownership to incidental car use, as in mobility-as-a-service (Jittrapirom et al. 2017) – Ending automobile dependence (Newman and Kenworthy 2015)	Complementary interventions: (1) alternative mobility options and (2) car constraints. • Example: Combining mobility sharing concepts and the reduction of car parking in Munich (VanHoose et al. 2022)
CITY/REGION/WORLD: Avoid, shift, improve freight	– From a linear economy to a circular economy (Sariatli 2017)– From an ownership economy to a sharing economy (Richardson 2015)– From global to local sourcing (Ashby 2016)	He (2020) presents more mainstream ‘shift’ and ‘improve’ approaches. More radical ‘avoid’ approaches would involve localization of production, socialization of consumption, repair of goods, and reuse of materials, and ‘degrowth’ approaches to spatial and mobility planning (Xue and Kębłowski 2022; Cattaneo et al. 2022)

Gehl, J. 2010. Cities for People. Washington, DC: Island Press.

 Google Scholar

Bertolini, L. 2020. “From ‘Streets for Traffic’ to ‘Streets for People’: Can Street Experiments Transform Urban Mobility?” Transport Reviews 40 (6): 734–753. doi:10.1080/01441647.2020.1761907.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Mehta, V. 2015. “The Street as Ecology. Chapter 6.” Incomplete Streets: Processes, Practices, and Possibilities, edited by J. Agyeman and S. Zavetovski, 94–115. Abingdon: Routledge.

 Google Scholar

Mehta, V. 2014. The Street, a Quintessential Social Public Space. Abingdon: Routledge.

 Google Scholar

Combs, T., and C. Pardo. 2021. “Shifting Streets COVID-19 Mobility Data: Findings from a Global Dataset and a Research Agenda for Transport Planning and Policy.” Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives 9: 100322. doi:10.1016/j.trip.2021.100322.

 Google Scholar

Handy, S. 2005. “Planning for Accessibility: In Theory and in Practice.” In Access to Destinations, edited by D.M. Levinson and K.J. Krizek, 131–147. Bingley: Emerald Group.

 Google Scholar

Pajares, E., B. Büttner, U. Jehle, A. Nichols, and G. Wulfhorst. 2021. “Accessibility by Proximity: Addressing the Lack of Interactive Accessibility Instruments for Active Mobility.” Journal of Transport Geography 93: 103080. doi:10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2021.103080.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Moreno, C., Z. Allam, D. Chabaud, C. Gall, and F. Pratlong. 2021. “Introducing the ‘15-Minute City’: Sustainability, Resilience and Place Identity in Future Post-pandemic Cities.” Smart Cities 4 (1): 93–111. doi:10.3390/smartcities4010006.

 Google Scholar

Westerink, J., D. Haase, A. Bauer, J. Ravetz, F. Jarrige, and C. Aalbers. 2013. “Dealing with Sustainability Trade-Offs of the Compact City in Peri-Urban Planning Across European City Regions.” European Planning Studies 21 (4): 473–497. doi:10.1080/09654313.2012.722927.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Keil, R., and J. Addie. 2015. “‘It’s Not Going to be Suburban, It’s Going to be All Urban’: Assembling Post-Suburbia in the Toronto and Chicago Regions.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 39 (5): 892–911. doi:10.1111/1468-2427.12303.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Kager, R., L. Bertolini, and M. Te Brömmelstroet. 2016. “Characterisation of and Reflections on the Synergy of Bicycles and Public Transport.” Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 85: 208–219. doi:10.1016/j.tra.2016.01.015.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Staricco, L., and E. Vitale Brovarone. 2020. “Implementing TOD Around Suburban and Rural Stations: An Exploration of Spatial Potentialities and Constraints.” Urban Research & Practice 13 (3): 276–299. doi:10.1080/17535069.2018.1541475.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Bertolini, L., and F. Le Clercq. 2003. “Urban Development Without More Mobility by Car? Lessons from Amsterdam, a Multimodal Urban Region.” Environment and Planning A 35 (4): 575–589. doi: 10.1068/a3592.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Jittrapirom, P., V. Caiati, A. Feneri, S. Ebrahimigharehbaghi, M. Alonso González, and J. Narayan. 2017. Mobility as a Service: A Critical Review of Definitions, Assessments of Schemes, and Key Challenges.

 Google Scholar

Newman, P., and J. Kenworthy. 2015. “The End of Automobile Dependence.” In The End of Automobile Dependence, edited by P. Newman and J. Kenworthy, 201–226. Washington, DC: Island Press.

 Google Scholar

VanHoose, K., A. de Gante, L. Bertolini, J. Kinigadner, and B. Büttner. 2022. “From Temporary Arrangements to Permanent Change: Assessing the Transitional Capacity of City Street Experiments.” Journal of Urban Mobility 2: 100015. doi:10.1016/j.urbmob.2022.100015.

 Google Scholar

Sariatli, F. 2017. “Linear Economy Versus Circular Economy: A Comparative and Analyzer Study for Optimization of Economy for Sustainability.” Visegrad Journal on Bioeconomy and Sustainable Development 6 (1): 31–34. doi:10.1515/vjbsd-2017-0005.

 Google Scholar

Richardson, L. 2015. “Performing the Sharing Economy.” Geoforum; Journal of Physical, Human, and Regional Geosciences 67: 121–129. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.11.004.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Ashby, A. 2016. “From Global to Local: Reshoring for Sustainability.” Operations Management Research 9 (3): 75–88. doi:10.1007/s12063-016-0117-9.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

He, Z. 2020. “The Challenges in Sustainability of Urban Freight Network Design and Distribution Innovations: A Systematic Literature Review.” International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management 50 (6): 601–640. doi:10.1108/IJPDLM-05-2019-0154.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Xue, J., and W. Kębłowski. 2022. “Spatialising Degrowth, Degrowing Urban Planning.” Local Environment 27 (4): 397–403. doi:10.1080/13549839.2022.2066642.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Cattaneo, C., G. Kallis, F. Demaria, C. Zografos, F. Sekulova, G. D’Alisa, A. Varvarousis, and M. Conde. 2022. “A Degrowth Approach to Urban Mobility Options: Just, Desirable and Practical Options.” Local Environment 27 (4): 459–486. doi:10.1080/13549839.2022.2025769.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar