Streets & mobility
How the width of the street is shared between those passing through and those staying put. Pedestrians, cars, transport and the life that happens at pavement level.
A street is a division of space. It has a fixed width and somebody has to decide how much goes to the car, how much to the bus, how much to the bicycle and how much is left for walking and for staying. That division was made decades ago, has almost never been reopened, and explains why in so many cities the pavement is whatever was left over.
This section gathers what we have published on mobility and public space: pedestrians and their minimums, the car and its space, public transport and its coverage, cycling, the fifteen-minute city and its critics, and the squares, parks and corners where a neighbourhood's social life happens. Also urban psychology: how the design of a street changes how we feel in it and how we behave.
The street is the only place in the city where nobody has to ask permission to be.
Every metre taken from the pedestrian ends up with somebody who did not need it.
- Urban psychology
Urban anaesthesia: why the city makes us ignore each other
Simmel, Milgram and Goffman explain urban indifference: stimulus overload, the familiar stranger and civil…
7 min read - Public space
The flâneur and the urban drift: walking without purpose
Baudelaire and Benjamin's flâneur, the situationist dérive and the flâneuse: why walking with no destination and no…
3 min read - Mobility
The flâneur and the urban drift: walking without purpose
Baudelaire and Benjamin's flâneur, the situationist dérive and the flâneuse: why walking with no destination and no…
7 min read - Public space
Why Walking Makes Cities Livelier and Safer: Jan Gehl's Evidence
Walking is the basis of public life and safety. What Jan Gehl measured in Cities for People, his twelve quality…
Jan Gehl 3 min read - Urban psychology
Dolores Hayden: Transform Spaces, Transform Gender
Dolores Hayden shows how homes, suburbs and public memory reproduce gender inequality and how design can undo it.…
Dolores Hayden 3 min read - Public space
Why Cities Should Not Be Identical Models: Jennifer Robinson
Jennifer Robinson argues in Ordinary Cities that every city can produce theory and that judging them by the…
Jennifer Robinson 3 min read - Public space
Richard Sennett's Open City: Open or Close the Public Space?
Richard Sennett defends the open city, designed for encounters with strangers, against closed enclosures. Ville and…
Richard Sennett 3 min read - Mobility
The Bike Improves Your Health and Enhances Your Neighbourhood
Cycling cuts mortality risk, frees street space, lowers noise and pollution and keeps local shops alive.
3 min read - Mobility
Traffic and Fear Kept Our Children Confined at Home
From eight in ten children walking to school alone to one in ten: how the car expelled children from the street,…
3 min read - Public space
Security Through Walls: Protection or Segregation?
Gated communities privatise surveillance and empty the street. What Caldeira, Low and Sabatini show about fortified…
3 min read - Mobility
Your Free Parking Costs Way More Than You Think: Shoup's Numbers
A supermarket lot could hold a hundred homes: Donald Shoup's high cost of free parking, minimums copied from…
3 min read - Mobility
The City Steals Time and Offers Speed: Mobility Versus Accessibility
Mobility measures speed; accessibility measures what you can reach. Induced demand, the one-hour travel budget of…
3 min read - Public space
Who Controls Your City's Public Spaces? Private Plazas
Privately owned public spaces look like squares but carry private rules. From New York's 1961 zoning to Occupy,…
3 min read - Public space
Innovation or Disguised Austerity in Tactical Urbanism?
Tactical urbanism was born as a rehearsal for the permanent and often ends as cuts with colours: Lydon and Garcia,…
3 min read - Public space
The Participatory Theatre That Deceives Us
When you are invited to participate, are you given power or asked to legitimise? Arnstein's ladder, Spain's Auken…
3 min read - Public space
Raúl Zibechi: Urban Social Movements and Territories in Resistance
Raúl Zibechi argues that Latin America's urban movements build non-state powers in their neighbourhoods. His ideas…
Raúl Zibechi 3 min read - Public space
Insurgent Citizenship: James Holston and the Peripheries of São Paulo
James Holston's insurgent citizenship explains how the residents who self-built São Paulo's peripheries won rights…
James Holston 3 min read - Public space
Michael Hardt and the Urban Common: The City as Everyone's Work
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's urban common explains how the city produces collective wealth that capital…
Michael Hardt 3 min read - Public space
Asef Bayat: Everyday Urban Activism and the Insurgent City
Asef Bayat explains in Life as Politics how the urban poor of the Middle East change the city without organising:…
Asef Bayat 3 min read - Urban psychology
Juhani Pallasmaa: The Eyes of the Skin and the senses
A summary of Juhani Pallasmaa's The Eyes of the Skin: why modern architecture privileges sight, and what touch,…
Juhani Pallasmaa 2 min read - Urban psychology
Kevin Lynch's The Image of the City: How We Perceive Cities
The Image of the City (1960) by Kevin Lynch explains how we perceive cities through five elements: paths, edges,…
Kevin Lynch 3 min read - Public space
Latin American Urban Theory: Marcelo Lopes de Souza
Latin American urban theory reads the city through inequality, informality and social struggle.
2 min read - Public space
Marc Augé: what non-places are
What non-places are according to Marc Augé: airports, motorways and shopping malls without history or identity,…
Marc Augé 2 min read - Urban psychology
Happy City by Charles Montgomery: Urban Design and Happiness
Happy City (2013) by Charles Montgomery gathers the evidence on which urban design makes us happier: shorter…
2 min read - Public space
Managing the Commons: Elinor Ostrom's Eight Design Principles
Elinor Ostrom proved that communities can govern shared resources without state or market. Her eight principles,…
Elinor Ostrom 3 min read - Public space
Lefebvre: urban space as a field of struggle
In The Production of Space, Lefebvre separates perceived, conceived and lived space, and shows where capital and…
Henri Lefebvre 2 min read - Public space
Great Streets by Allan Jacobs: What Makes a Street Great
Great Streets (1993) by Allan Jacobs compares the world's best streets at the same scale and draws eight…
Allan Jacobs 3 min read - Public space
John Friedmann: Transactive Planning and Community Participation
John Friedmann proposed transactive planning: a dialogue between technical and community knowledge.
John Friedmann 3 min read - Public space
Nicholas Blomley: Property, Space and Spatial Justice in the City
Nicholas Blomley shows that property is a spatial practice deciding who may be where. Unsettling the City, Rights…
Nicholas Blomley 3 min read - Public space
Henri Lefebvre: urban space as a social product
Henri Lefebvre showed that urban space is not a neutral setting: it is socially produced, and whoever produces it…
Henri Lefebvre 3 min read - Public space
Setha Low: Spatial Justice and the Right to Public Space
Setha Low studies what makes a public space just or exclusionary. Her ethnographies of plazas, parks and gated…
Setha Low 3 min read - Public space
Participatory democracy: Arnstein, Forester, Porto Alegre
What participatory democracy means in cities: Arnstein's ladder (1969), Forester's deliberative planning and…
2 min read - Public space
Thirdspaces: Soja and Bhabha's Third Space in the City
Thirdspaces are the hybrid places where the dichotomies of public and private, centre and periphery break down.…
Edward Soja 3 min read - Public space
Women and Cities: Advances and Gaps in Urban Research
A review of 275 articles from 1977 to 2019 shows what urban research knows about women and cities and what it…
2 min read - Public space
Sharon Sutton: Social Inclusion and Participation in Urban Planning
Sharon Sutton, a pioneering African American architect, argues for designing with marginalised communities and…
Sharon Sutton 3 min read - Urban psychology
Diane Davis: Urban Resilience in Situations of Chronic Violence
Diane Davis explains how communities resist and adapt to chronic violence and which governance reduces it:…
Diane Davis 3 min read - Public space
Ana Falú: Feminist Urbanism and Inclusion in Cities
Ana Falú, a reference of feminist urbanism in Latin America: urban safety from a gender perspective, women's…
Ana Falú 2 min read - Mobility
Enrique Peñalosa and the Transformation of Bogotá (1998-2000)
Enrique Peñalosa transformed Bogotá between 1998 and 2000 with TransMilenio, cycle paths, pavements and libraries…
3 min read - Public space
Susan Fainstein's Just City: Equity, Diversity and Democracy
The Just City (2010) by Susan Fainstein proposes judging urban policy by its equity, diversity and democracy.
Susan Fainstein 3 min read - Public space
Richard Sennett and the Decline of Public Life
In The Fall of Public Man (1977) Richard Sennett explains how the tyranny of intimacy emptied public space. Key…
Richard Sennett 3 min read - Public space
Setha Low and Don Mitchell: The Politics of Public Space
The politics of public space decides who may be in the plaza. What Setha Low shows in On the Plaza and Don Mitchell…
Setha Low 3 min read - Mobility
The Right to Mobility: Social Justice in Urban Transport
The right to mobility is the right to get there, not to move. What David Harvey and Susan Handy explain, what…
3 min read - Public space
Urban Territoriality: Inclusion and Exclusion (Low and Delaney)
Urban territoriality explains how groups and institutions mark and control city space. What Setha Low and David…
3 min read - Public space
Interstitial Spaces: Resistance and Creativity in the City's Gaps
Interstitial spaces, vacant lots, warehouses and motorway undersides, are where the city reinvents itself.
3 min read - Urban psychology
Urban Design and Mental Health: Lessons from Whyte and Gehl
Urban mental health depends on how streets, plazas and parks are designed. What William H. Whyte and Jan Gehl…
2 min read - Public space
Tactical urbanism: testing the city before building it
Tactical urbanism tests plazas, bike lanes and pop-up gardens to find out what works on the street before it is…
2 min read - Public space
Edward Soja and Spatial Justice: The City After Chicago
Edward Soja defined spatial justice: geography produces injustice and changing space is doing justice.…
Edward Soja 2 min read - Public space
Dolores Hayden and Feminist Urbanism: The Grand Domestic Revolution
Dolores Hayden showed that housing and cities were designed as if care work did not exist. What The Grand Domestic…
Dolores Hayden 2 min read - Public space
Social urbanism: Peñalosa and Gehl on inclusive cities
What social urbanism means for Enrique Peñalosa and Jan Gehl: quality public space, pedestrians before cars, and…
2 min read - Public space
Jane Jacobs: the street as the engine of the city
Jane Jacobs showed in 1961 that mixed uses, density and active streets keep a neighbourhood safe better than any…
Jane Jacobs 2 min read - Mobility
Electric Mobility in the City: Benefits, Limits and What to Electrify
Electric mobility cuts emissions and noise but does not solve congestion or space. What Peter Newman and Donald…
3 min read - Public space
Inclusive Citizen Participation: Forester and Irazábal Explained
Inclusive citizen participation means reaching those left out. What John Forester teaches about deliberation and…
3 min read - Public space
Feminist City by Leslie Kern: The City Made by and for Men
Feminist City (2019) by Leslie Kern shows how the city was designed for a default man and how mothers, women alone…
Leslie Kern 2 min read - Public space
Intersectionality in Urban Space: A City for Everyone
Intersectionality, formulated by Kimberlé Crenshaw, shows that gender, race, class, age and disability produce…
3 min read - Public space
Margit Mayer and the Struggle for the Right to the City
Margit Mayer explains how urban movements win the right to the city and how neoliberalism co-opts them with mottos…
Margit Mayer 3 min read - Mobility
Transit-Oriented Development: Cervero and Newman
Transit-oriented development builds dense, mixed-use neighbourhoods around stations: Cervero's transit metropolis,…
2 min read - Public space
Gender Inequality in Urban Space: Causes and Responses
Gender inequality in the city is measured in time, fear and opportunity. What Dolores Hayden and Leslie Kern…
3 min read - Mobility
Shared Mobility in Cities: What Works According to Shaheen and Cervero
Shared mobility cuts cars only if the city governs it. What Susan Shaheen and Robert Cervero measure about car…
3 min read - Public space
Insurgent Citizenship: James Holston and the City from Below
James Holston's insurgent citizenship explains how São Paulo's peripheries won rights by building their…
James Holston 3 min read - Public space
Pedestrianization: Definition and Benefits from Gehl and Appleyard
Pedestrianization gives the street back to people. What it is, how Jan Gehl and Donald Appleyard justify it and…
3 min read - Mobility
Mobility as a Service (MaaS): Whim's Promise, Failure and What Works
Mobility as a Service integrates public transport, bikes and taxis in one app. What Whim promised in Helsinki, why…
3 min read - Mobility
Parking Policies: Shoup, Willson and Urban Mobility
Parking policies decide how many cars enter the city. What Donald Shoup and Richard Willson propose on minimums and…
3 min read - Mobility
Efficient Public Transport: Lessons from Cervero and Kenworthy
Public transport decides whether a city is sustainable and accessible. What sets working systems apart according to…
2 min read - Urban psychology
Urban Public Health: Policies for Healthier and Fairer Cities
Urban public health policies decide air, water, housing and transport. What David Satterthwaite and Julian Agyeman…
2 min read - Public space
Spatial justice: what it is, after Soja and Fainstein
What spatial justice is and how Edward Soja (Seeking Spatial Justice) and Susan Fainstein (The Just City)…
2 min read - Public space
Urban Social Movements: Castells, Harvey and Mayer Explained
Urban social movements fight for housing, services and public space. What Manuel Castells, David Harvey and Margit…
3 min read - Public space
Urban Space and Power: Foucault, Massey and Soja Explained
Urban space is an instrument of power and a field of resistance. What Foucault's panopticon, Massey's power…
2 min read - Public space
The Right to the City: Lefebvre, Harvey and Marcuse Explained
The right to the city, formulated by Henri Lefebvre in 1968, is the right to decide how the city is produced.
3 min read - Public space
Feminist Urbanism: What It Is, Principles and City Examples
Feminist urbanism designs cities for daily life and care work, not for the man with a car. What Jane Darke and…
3 min read - Public space
Doreen Massey: space has a gender too
Massey showed that moving through the city does not cost everyone the same, and called that geographical inequality…
Doreen Massey 2 min read - Mobility
Women's Mobility and Urban Transport: The Mobility of Care
Women travel differently and transport was planned as if they did not. What Susan Hanson and Inés Sánchez de…
3 min read - Urban psychology
Urban Violence and Insecurity: Caldeira, Wacquant and Davis
Urban violence and fear reorganise the city into gated enclaves and abandoned peripheries. What Teresa Caldeira,…
2 min read - Public space
Decolonising Urban Space: What It Means and How It Is Done
Decolonising urban space dismantles the hierarchies colonisation left in cities. What Ananya Roy and Jennifer…
3 min read - Public space
Judith Butler and the City: Gender Performativity in Urban Space
Judith Butler's gender performativity explains how urban space produces and polices gender. Her key ideas,…
3 min read - Urban psychology
Urban Violence and Security Policies in Unequal Cities
Citizen security policies swing between the iron fist and prevention. What Teresa Caldeira and Lucía Dammert show…
3 min read - Mobility
Sustainable mobility: Newman, Banister and Kenworthy
What sustainable mobility means for Peter Newman, David Banister and Jeff Kenworthy: car dependence, density,…
2 min read - Mobility
Urban Congestion: Strategies That Work According to Downs and Jones
Urban congestion is not solved by adding lanes. What Anthony Downs and Peter Jones explain, what congestion pricing…
2 min read - Public space
Inclusive Public Space: Sennett and Low on Participatory Cities
Inclusive public space is the infrastructure of urban democracy. What Richard Sennett and Setha Low explain, two…
3 min read - Mobility
Urban Cycling: What Makes a City Cycle According to Pucher and Buehler
Urban cycling depends on infrastructure and policy, not climate or culture. What John Pucher and Ralph Buehler…
3 min read - Public space
Citizen Participation in Urban Governance: Keys and Limits
Citizen participation decides who shapes the city. What Neil Brenner and Saskia Sassen explain, which mechanisms…
2 min read - Public space
Elinor Ostrom: governing the commons without selling them
Ostrom proved that communities manage shared resources well without privatising or nationalising them, and her…
Elinor Ostrom 2 min read - Urban psychology
Post-Pandemic Cities: How COVID-19 Redefined Urban Space
Post-pandemic cities accelerated tactical urbanism, remote work and awareness of health inequality.
2 min read - Public space
Animal city: planning for pigeons, rats and foxes
Jennifer Wolch, Donaldson and Kymlicka: what a city planned for pigeons, rats, foxes and buried rivers looks like,…
1 min read - Mobility
School apartheid: the street that decides where you study
Property taxes, exclusionary zoning and the Rodriguez ruling explain why one street decides which school, and which…
1 min read
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Shorts
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How We Perceive Cities: The Impact of 'The Image of the City' by Kevin Lynch -
Healthy City. Fewer cars, longer lives: street experiment is quietly rewriting urban -
The Highway That Kills Friendships -
That pop-up plaza didn't come to stay, it came to raise the prices -
Urban The street isn’t free: how harassment silently controls movement -
or Premium Coast? The seaside looks public… but it’s becoming increasingly exclusive -
Elastic Spaces. Now they discover the best spaces are the ones that transform themselves -
Emotional bridges stopped being crossings. Now they're where the city breathes -
The right to the city: participation and social appropriation -
Living streets -
future transport. doesn’t fly: it walks
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