Mobility and Social Cohesion in the Splintered City: Challenging Technocentric Transport Research and Policy-making Practices

This paper argues that dominant research practices in the urban transport field add to rather than subtract from social cohesion and mobility inequities. While this is recognised as an on-going political struggle, it is also explained through a failure to mobilise consistently a broad definition of social cohesion in transport research and policy-making; and a technology fixation among communities of transport research and practice, particularly in the commissioning of European Commission research. Elements of a new urban mobility agenda are proposed to address mobility challenges and to improve the fostering of urban social cohesion.

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