Description
Book Synopsis From local bike-sharing initiatives to overhauls of transport infrastructure, mobility is one of the most important areas in which modern cities are trying to realize a more sustainable future. Yet even as politicians and planners look ahead, there remain critical insights to be gleaned from the history of urban mobility and the unsustainable practices that still impact our everyday lives. United by their pursuit of a “usable past,” the studies in this interdisciplinary collection consider the ecological, social, and economic aspects of urban mobility, showing how historical inquiry can make both conceptual and practical contributions to the projects of sustainability and urban renewal.
Trade Review “This is the book I’ve been waiting to read: an investigation into how our cities came to be as unsustainable as they apparently were in the recent past. It uncovers hidden histories containing important clues for how to make cities more sustainable in the future.” • Daniel Gordon, Edge Hill University
“The entire book is innovative, accessible, and well-written, with an interdisciplinary approach that combines history, sociology, economics, geography, and a number of other fields.” • Keith Laybourn, University of Huddersfield
Table of Contents Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Historicizing Sustainable Urban Mobility
Frank Schipper, Martin Emanuel, and Ruth Oldenziel
SECTION I: SELLING UNSUSTAINABLE URBAN MOBILITY
Chapter 1. Designing (Un)Sustainable Urban Mobility from Transnational Settings, 1850–Present
Ruth Oldenziel, M. Luísa Sousa, and Pieter van Wesemael
Chapter 2. History as Motordom’s Tool of Agenda Legitimation: Twentieth-Century U.S. Urban Mobility Trajectories
Peter Norton
Chapter 3. Railway Modernism Losing Out: Lessons from an English Conurbation, 1955–1975
Colin Divall
SECTION II: RECOVERING SUSTAINABLE MOBILITIES OF THE PAST
Chapter 4. Pedestrian Stories: Recovering Sustainable Urban Mobility
Colin Pooley
Chapter 5. Load Story: A Century of Pedestrian Logistics in Toulouse
Franck Cochoy, Roland Canu, and Cédric Calvignac
Chapter 6. Recovering Sustainable Mobility Practices: A Visual History of Turku’s Streetscape 1950–1980
Tiina Männistö-Funk
SECTION III: PERSISTENCE AND SUSTAINABLE URBAN MOBILITIES
Chapter 7. State Socialism and Sustainable Urban Mobility: Alternative Paths in St Petersburg since the 1880s
Alexandra Bekasova, Julia Kulikova, and Martin Emanuel
Chapter 8. Liveable Streets and Hidden Unsustainability: The Biography of a Street in Stockholm
Martin Emanuel
Chapter 9. Green Urban Spaces and Sustainable Mobility: Parks as Pockets of Persistence since the 1830s
Frank Schipper
SECTION IV: RESEARCH AGENDAS FOR THE FUTURE
Chapter 10. Mobility Justice and the Velomobile Commons in Urban America
Mimi Sheller
Chapter 11. Toward a Long-Term Measurement System of Sustainable Urban Mobility
Appendix: Sources for Measuring Historical Sustainable Mobility
Jan-Pieter Smits and Frank Veraart
Epilogue: Reflections from a Policy Perspective
Hans Jeekel and Bert Toussaint
Index
