Urban transport as a social construct: Theory, evidence, and analytical threads

This special issue emerges from the Urban Studies journal’s Critical and Conceptual Advances in Urban Studies initiative and features the development and application of a transport-as-a-social-construct framework. The collection of articles demonstrates the framework’s conceptual breadth as well as its empirical relevance across diverse geographic contexts and transport modes. We begin by outlining three conceptual articles that establish key theoretical foundations for a social constructivist understanding of urban transport, highlighting how social, cultural, and political forces both shape and are shaped by urban transport systems. We then introduce nine empirical articles organized around four interrelated thematic areas: the social construction of transport systems, the social benefits and burdens of transport, social interaction and cultural production in transport spaces, and the social and cultural determinants and experiences of travel. Beyond these thematic areas, we identify three overarching and recurring analytical threads: contestation and conflict, contingency and interdependency, and people and performativity. Our analysis highlights the generative potential of contestation and conflict in opening alternative futures for urban mobility, the context-sensitivity of transport meanings and effects, and the importance of attending to situated actors and embodied experiences in advancing a social constructivist perspective. Finally, the conclusion summarizes the breadth of theoretical and empirical contributions and asserts their significance to both scholarship and intervention.