Urban mobilities and materialities – a critical reflection of “sustainable” urban development

Abstract

Urban mobilities are produced through different relations, interactions and materialities. Different combinations of these factors lead to different mobilities, some of which are more sustainable than others. Moreover, mobilities are influenced, shaped and produced through the materialities that create power relations between mobilities and people and that reinforce certain unsustainable ways of moving in the urban space. This paper focuses on the Western Harbour in the city of Malmö, Sweden, which is an area that has been developed during the era of sustainable development and thus the production of mobilities as part of the development should have been sustainable. However, it is shown in this paper that this has not been the case. In particular, peoples’ movements and how they use urban space have not been in focus during the development of the Western Harbour area. While cycling through the Western Harbour, the experience is that obstacles are often in the way and that the network within the area is not connected and is confusing. Moreover, the dominance of cars is very distinct. In this paper, I argue that these materialities influence mobilities and that this can lead to the dominance of unsustainable forms of mobility. By analysing urban mobilities in the Western Harbour, I show that urban planning, even though it might have sustainability as its foundation, can lead to materialities that produce unsustainable mobilities.

Keywords:

• Mobilities
• urban space
• materialities
• Malmö
• Sweden