A U-Turn to the Future

From local bike-sharing initiatives to overhauls of transport infrastructure, mobility is one of the most important areas in which modern cities are trying to realize a more sustainable future. Yet even as politicians and planners look ahead, there remain critical insights to be gleaned from the history of urban mobility and the unsustainable practices that still impact our everyday lives. United by their pursuit of a “usable past,” the studies in this interdisciplinary collection consider the ecological, social, and economic aspects of urban mobility, showing how historical inquiry can make both conceptual and practical contributions to the projects of sustainability and urban renewal.

Martin Emanuel is a historian of technology affiliated with the Department of Economic History, Uppsala University with a profile on mobility, urban, and tourism history. He is the author of Trafikslag på undantag: Cykeltrafiken i Stockholm 1930–1980 [Excluded through Planning: Bicycle Traffic in Stockholm 1930–1980] (2012) and co-author of Cycling Cities: The European Experience (2016).

Frank Schipper is a historian of technology and an independent scholar specializing in mobility and infrastructure studies. He is the author of Driving Europe: Building Europe on Roads in the Twentieth Century (2008) and, most recently, co-author of Cycling Cities: The Rotterdam Experience (2019).

Ruth Oldenziel is a professor in the History Division of the Technology, Innovation, and Society Department at Eindhoven University of Technology, where she heads the research program “Sustainable Urban Mobility, 1880s-Present.” She has published widely in the areas of American, transatlantic, gender, and technology studies, most recently as co-author of the volumes Cycling Cities: The European Experience (2016) and Engineering the Future, Understanding the Past (2017).