Imagineering mobility: constructing utopias for future urban transport.

Over the past fifty years a growing body of work has sought to address the problem of planning for transportation in the long-term future through scenario building. Such thinking has generally been restricted to issues concerned with environmental sustainability and the 'images' of future transport...

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Publicado en:Environment & Planning A Vol. 46; no. 1; pp. 78 - 94
Autores principales: Timms, Paul, Tight, Miles, Watling, David
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Sage Publications Inc. 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      pub: Sage Publications Inc.
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        atl: Imagineering mobility: constructing utopias for future urban transport.
      aug:
        au:
          Timms, Paul
          Tight, Miles
          Watling, David
        affil:
          Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, England
          School of Civil Engineering, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, England
      su:
        Urban transportation
        Utopias
        Dystopias
        Urban planning
        Problem solving
        Sustainability
        Imaging systems
      sug:
        subj:
          Urban transportation
          Utopias
          Dystopias
          Urban planning
          Problem solving
          Land Subdivision
          Administration of Urban Planning and Community and Rural Development
          Photographic and Photocopying Equipment Manufacturing
          Computer Terminal and Other Computer Peripheral Equipment Manufacturing
          Other Urban Transit Systems
          Mixed Mode Transit Systems
          Urban transit systems
          Sustainability
          Imaging systems
      keyword:
        environmental sustainability
        exploratory scenarios
        social sustainability
        transport planning
        utopia
        environmental sustainability
        exploratory scenarios
        social sustainability
        transport planning
        utopia
      ab: Over the past fifty years a growing body of work has sought to address the problem of planning for transportation in the long-term future through scenario building. Such thinking has generally been restricted to issues concerned with environmental sustainability and the 'images' of future transport so created are usually weak in terms of their social sustainability content, either treating social issues superficially, or ignoring them entirely, or even creating images that are socially undesirable. At the same time, there has generally been a marked decrease over the past twenty years in socially oriented utopian thinking. As a direct result of these two factors, hardly any consideration has been given recently to imagining socially sustainable views of transport in a future utopia. The key underlying aim of this paper is to provide some background thinking about how this lack might be addressed. To do so, it examines concepts about utopia in terms of their form, content, and function, and considers possible reasons for the recent decline in utopian thinking and their 'replacement' by a type of futures-thinking that is referred to as dystopian avoidance. It then examines transport characteristics of utopian thinking in urban planning in the 20th century and considers various 'antinomies of transport' with respect to future utopias. Based upon the insights gained, the paper comments on two existing 'practical' sets of transport-related scenarios in terms of their utopian and dystopian characteristics. One particular result is that the utopian aspects of these scenario sets in terms of their social content are relatively weak, in line with the hypothesised recent general decline in (social) utopian thinking. Various conclusions are made which emphasise the usefulness of utopian thinking in transport planning, particularly in participatory approaches. It is suggested that three elements of the transport system should be separately 'utopianised': the mobility of people and goods; physical aspects that facilitate or inhibit such mobility; and the system of governance with respect to formulating and implementing transport policy.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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