Dear Architects-Is it time to stop fetishising mobility?!

I am as vulnerable as the next architect to the charms of a silvery 911, or a digitally blurred jet stream image, although, my travels in junkspace, did diminish the glamour of the car. Yours truly has finally understood the significance of mobility, now & here (London, UK 2018ish.).

In the neo-liberal city or worldspace, there is no planning really, that was resolved some time ago in the past with the failure of much large scale planning in the 50s/60s/70s. We riff off animal spirits, pure and simple. However, in order to serve our growth, because there must be growth, we need infrastructure, roads, trains, planes & automobiles, there must be tunnels, there must be new rail lines (costs are justified, passenger numbers are increasing, or if they are not they will be by the time we have finished), there must be a bigger airport, so to the extent there is planning this at least must be procured and it has a very powerful effect on spaces and places. #Mobility today is planning. A still mechanistic worldview sees to it that we can move and woe betide any fool who stands in the way of the, growth -movement, movement -growth, chicken and egg.

The TOD, "transit oriented development", moniker describes a strategy of densification, in North America & elsewhere. It is implemented more or less well, sometimes criticised as "transit optional development" where it has a mainly lifestyle and not strategic function. Due to the scale of development it precipitates, sometimes barely mediated by planning instruments, there are winners and losers. Whose mobility? So, the elevation of movement, can become divisive. Pack up your Porsche, your bullet train, your Hyperloop, the promise of complete automobility, the unlimited horizon of personal travel, has hit a snag.

We need to talk about mobility & infrastructure, we need to understand the real meaning, of the phenomenon of movement taking account of global context. Modernism which persists for most architects was built about the industrialist & his vehicle, the 2CV, his cruise ship, planes. The mobility promise plays into the architects dream of the total environment, and it nearly works, still, except that now transportation can be an instrument of alienation and disenfranchisement as much as it is a luxurious freedom. We are still good with the bicycle, the slow space, I guess.

Do neo-liberal cities finally scupper the glorification of motion in Architecture?! In general, bad cases do not make good rules, but let's see!