Transit Life: How Commuting Is Transforming Our Cities (Urban and Industrial Environments) - Softcover

Bissell, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262534967 ISBN 13: 9780262534963

Publisher: The MIT Press, 2018

Synopsis

An exploration of the ways that everyday life in the city is defined by commuting.

We spend much of our lives in transit to and from work. Although we might dismiss our daily commute as a wearying slog, we rarely stop to think about the significance of these daily journeys. In Transit Life, David Bissell explores how everyday life in cities is increasingly defined by commuting. Examining the overlooked events and encounters of the commute, Bissell shows that the material experiences of our daily journeys are transforming life in our cities. The commute is a time where some of the most pressing tensions of contemporary life play out, striking at the heart of such issues as our work-life balance; our relationships with others; our sense of place; and our understanding of who we are.

Drawing on in-depth fieldwork with commuters, journalists, transit advocates, policymakers, and others in Sydney, Australia, Transit Life takes a holistic perspective to change how we think about commuting. Rather than arguing that transport infrastructure investment alone can solve our commuting problems, Bissell explores the more subtle but powerful forms of social change that commuting creates. He examines the complex politics of urban mobility through multiple dimensions, including the competencies that commuters develop over time; commuting dispositions and the social life of the commute; the multiple temporalities of commuting; the experience of commuting spaces, from footpath to on-ramp, both physical and digital; the voices of commuting, from private rants to drive-time radio; and the interplay of materialities, ideas, advocates, and organizations in commuting infrastructures.

About this title

About the Author

David Bissell is Associate Professor in the School of Geography at the University of Melbourne.

Edition details

• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262534967
• ISBN 13: 9780262534963
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 266