Mobilities, Futures & the City: repositioning discourses – changing perspectives – rethinking policies

How to Plan for Transformative Change in light of New Mobility Technologies? A Discussion on Reflexivity as a Planning Principle and the Format of Real-world Laboratories

“…In order to tackle complex urban challenges, 'evolutionary approaches' (Bertolini, 2007(Bertolini, , p. 1999 and 'adaptive approaches' (Rauws, 2017, p. 35) recommend an incremental development and loose rules rather than detailed regulations. With regards to the ongoing mobility transition, explorative and reflexive planning practice have gained increased attention (Freudendal-Pedersen & Kesselring, 2016;Hopkins & Schwanen, 2018). In this context, the present paper acknowledges the need for proactive planning action and policy implementation, but questions means of guiding transformative change.…”

“…By doing so, principles such as precaution, experimentation, tolerance of mistakes, and learning gain significance Schwarz, 2014). Acknowledging that there is not one, but several possible ways, with often contradicting futures, reflexive strategies are vital for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary processes which pursue alternative trajectories (Freudendal-Pedersen & Kesselring, 2016). Lissandrello and Grin (2011) introduced one example of how reflexivity can be integrated into urban planning practice which they framed 'as a new tool for generating critical knowledge and dialogue' (p. 223).…”

“…The approach is valuable to further considerations on guiding urban mobility transitions, as it emphasizes the 'transformative potential of agency' (Lissandrello & Grin, 2011, p. 224). As illustrated above, reflexive practices bear the potential to instigate social learning through self-confrontational interaction and to trigger structural changes through an inter-subjective redefinition of social realities (Freudendal-Pedersen & Kesselring, 2016;Schneidewind et al, 2018).…”

“…Whether change agents are involved in a project for its entire duration or merely during specific phases, and whether they participate as part of the research team or as external contributors greatly varies between transdisciplinary process designs (Defila & Di Guilio, 2018). Nonetheless, temporary urban interventions such as parklets can trigger the imagination regarding possible alternatives and be a first step in the service of change (Freudendal-Pedersen & Kesselring, 2016). Such initiatives may also stir polarizing debates on the right to public space, which might not conjure certainty on how to solve traffic hazards in the short term, but in terms of their discursive capacity, can lead to an awareness of the urgency to act (Schwarz, 2014).…”

What is Smart for the Future City? Mobilities and Automation

“…It is not the smart city but the "smart urbanism" that is needed to powerfully design the "desirable" instead of the "expected futures" [63]. In his 2016 book "What is the Future" [64], Urry makes a similar point saying that the future of modern societies is full of "wicked", almost unsolvable problems. Therefore, the construction of desirable futures has to happen in specific social settings which include thorough analysis of the specific historical and social conditions of the problems and their socio-material and socio-technological environments.…”