Marianna Charitonidou, “Urban Mobility Patterns and Welfare Politics: Constructing Cities for the Space of Flows”, in Rosa Tamborrino, ed., Città che si adattano?/Adaptive Cities? Volume 1 (Turin: AISU International, 2024), 678-690.

The paper explores urban mobility patters in some characteristic New Towns in the UK, France and Sweden, such as Harlow and Cumbernauld in the UK, Toulouse-Le Mirail in France, and Vällingby in Sweden. To investigate the urban mobility patterns in these Welfare State contexts, the paper compares them, placing particular emphasis on the concepts of “Transit-oriented development” (TOD), space of flows as understood by Manuel Castells, and “Ecumenopolis” by Constantinos A. Doxiadis. At the center of the paper lie the imaginaries produced by architects and urban planners, and their vision for highways in different national contexts and for their role in the aforementioned New Towns.