Amsterdam hypermobility4

Cross-thinking about sustainability: Hypermobility: a challenge to governance : 

Cross-thinking about sustainability: Hypermobility: a challenge to governance Amsterdam 11 May, 2006 John.Adams@UCL.ac.uk www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/~jadams/publish.htm

Business as usualin Britain: 

Business as usual in Britain 5 miles per day in 1950 More than 30 miles per day now 60 miles per day in 2025

Slide3: 

We all live in a time-space dome

Slide4: 

Mean trip length doubles and doubles again

Slide5: 

As mean trip length doubles and doubles again, the population contained within our radius of Interaction quadruples and quadruples again

Slide6: 

The current Dutch government has explicitly rejected strategies that influence the demand for mobility, assuming that this not socially viable. Is that right? “We expect that economic growth will increase demand for business and personal travel as well as increase the requirement for freight movement“ UK Government’s 10 Year Plan http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_about/documents/page/dft_about_503944.hcsp

The social consequences of hypermobility (the pollution-free perpetual-motion engine & electronic mobility too cheap to meter): 

The social consequences of hypermobility (the pollution-free perpetual-motion engine & electronic mobility too cheap to meter) more dispersed (more suburban sprawl) more polarised (greater disparity between rich and poor) less culturally distinctive (the McCulture will be further advanced) less child-friendly (children’s freedoms will be further curtailed by parental fears) more anonymous and less convivial (fewer people will know their neighbours) more dangerous for those not in cars (more metal in motion) fatter and less fit (less exercise built into daily routines) more crime ridden (less social cohesion and more fear of crime) subject to a more Orwellian style of policing (more CCTV surveillance) less trusting (the rise of the audit/risk-assessment culture) less democratic (the majority will have less influence over the decisions that govern their lives)

Slide10: 

Parking meters are 20’ apart Therefore you can park 264 cars in one mile How much extra tarmac is needed to provide a single parking place for each of these 3 million extra cars? In 2000 Europe’s car population increased by more than 3 million In 2000 there were 16.8 million new motor vehicles sold in Western Europe. To park all of them would require a London>Rome motorway 70 lanes wide – a measure of the scale of the recycling problem awaiting in about ten years time.

Slide11: 

U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Transportation Technologies Western Europe 16.8 million

Slide13: 

Polarization: global 6.5 billion .55 billion? .55 billion?

Slide14: 

Social polarization les banlieu

Slide15: 

More anonymous, less convivial Redrawn from Appleyard and Lintell

Slide16: 

Bowling Alone Robert Putnam

Slide19: 

“The only way you could tell you were leaving one community and entering another was when the franchises started repeating and you spotted another 7-Eleven, another Wendy’s, another Costco, another Home Depot.” Tom Wolfe A Man in Full The McCulture effect

Slide22: 

Anonymity, more crime and fear of crime – Big Brother watches

Slide25: 

“The swings are packed away at night because kids might climb the fence and use them unsupervised and hurt themselves.”

Hypermobility&democracy: 

Hypermobility & democracy

Slide32: 

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore; Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.”

Slide33: 

London to New York 1886 – 8 days - homeless, tempest-tost 2001 – 3 hours – economic migrant – or terrorist

Slide34: 

A mobility/communications landscape

Slide35: 

A mobility/communications landscape

Three opinion polls: 

Three opinion polls Would you like a car and unlimited air miles? Would you like to live in the sort of world that would result if everyone’s wish were granted? Would you like to live in a cleaner, safer, healthier, more sustainable world in which people knew their neighbours, and it was safe for children to play in the streets?

Slide37: 

Can technology save us? World Transport Policy and Practice, 2/3 [1996] 4–17 www.agenda21.ee/english/transport/can_tech_save_us.pdf The Social Implications of Hypermobility Report for OECD Project on Environmentally Sustainable Transport, Paris 1999 http://www.olis.oecd.org/olis/1999doc.nsf/63c71d2d4054d0fdc125685d0053aee4/c125685b002f5004c125686b005cb510/$FILE/00071363.PDF#page=95 Hypermobility: too much of a good thing Royal Society for the Arts Lecture 21 November 2001 http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/~jadams/PDFs/hypermobilityforRSA.pdf Further reading