Belief-driven and socio-spatially effective? Transition pathways from car-oriented to car-reduced planning on the neighborhood scale

Car-oriented planning practices characterize cities in Germany and elsewhere. Abandoning these unsustainable trajectories can be regarded as a major challenge for cities. However, car-reduced planning is not yet common practice even for new urban developments. To provide an understanding of the stasis observed as well as a potential transition from car-oriented to car-reduced planning practices, we are developing a conceptual framework that integrates a belief-related and a socio-spatial perspective. Empirically, this comparative study concerns four cases of developing new neighborhoods in favor of sustainable mobility in three German cities. First, our qualitative analysis of expert interviews indicates a reciprocal relationship between belief patterns (i.e. belief setting, belief translation, belief persistence, and belief change) and socio-spatial factors (i.e. material, institutional, and cultural dimensions). Consequently, second, it reveals car-reduced planning processes as being highly varied and nested phenomena, deriving four example planning transition pathways. These are car-reduced planning as (i) a mission, initiated and implemented based on a belief in sustainable mobility; (ii) an intra-urban transfer, oriented on a role model within the same city; (iii) a means to an end, justified as necessary to enable further housing development; and (iv) as an ambiguity, caused by antagonistic actor relationships. Third, the study shows how the interplay of belief-driven and socio-spatial dimensions may hamper or favor the transition from car-oriented to car-reduced planning. To wrap up, our findings raise awareness of a complexity-based understanding of mobility-related transition governance highlighting beliefs and socio-spatial factors as mutually influencing.