Mobility at the heart of urban sociology
© 2014 PPUR
Three years after the publication of “Re-Thinking the City – Urban Dynamics and Motility,” an augmented French translation has been published under the title “Retour sur la ville.”
Over the past decades, the reach and speed of transport systems have upended urban dynamics, giving residents unprecedented freedom in deciding where to do what, and how to get there. In “Retour sur la ville,” Vincent Kaufmann adopts a sociological approach to studying European cities, choosing personal motility as a starting point. The book, published by Presses Polytechniques Universitaires et Romandes, is an augmented translation of “Re-Thinking the City – Urban Dynamics and Motility,” originally published in 2011.
From the book’s back cover (translated): “The phenomenon of urban mobility has undergone a profound mutation due to the possibilities offered by transport and communications systems, with considerable impact to society and its territories. These technologies have been readily adopted by the population, which, today, has become heavily reliant on them.
Through the study of mobility, this book seeks to examine the forces that give contemporary cities their persistence.
Individual and collective agents are endowed with motility, possessing relatively advanced competences and creative aptitudes, which they utilize to appropriate technological systems for personal, collective, or commercial projects.
This work deliberately embraces a dialectical posture confronting theoretical developments and empirical research data. It thereby feeds the debate that is underway in research on mobility studies, urban governance, social exclusion and the right to the city, gentrification, and urban sprawl. “Retour sur la ville” closes with the proposition of ten theses on cities and urbanity.”