Bicycle Utopias: Imagining Fast and Slow Cycling Futures

ISBN-13: 9780367582241 / Angielski / Miękka / 2020 / 202 str.

Cosmin Popan

Opis

Bicycle Utopias investigates the future of urban mobilities and post-car societies, arguing that the bicycle can become the nexus around which most human movement will revolve. Drawing on literature on post-car futures (Urry 2007; Dennis and Urry 2009), transition theory (Geels et al. 2012) and utopian studies (Levitas 2010, 2013), this bo

Spis treści

Chapter 1, Prologue: Imagining a slow bicycle system

The new ‘structure of feeling’

The end of neoliberalism: embracing the slow

The urban form

Bike + train + cargo = love

Cycling as mobility policy

From subculture to culture

The bicycle economy and big data

Know-how and technology transfer

Innovations in bicycles and accessories

Broader societal and economic changes

Steps from 2016 to 2050

Chapter 2, Introduction: Tips of the cycling iceberg

Chapter 3: How to imagine biketopias

Utopia as method

Conclusions: Enacting the social

Chapter 4: Beyond autopia

The elephant in the city

From autopia to Carmageddon

Electric, autonomous, networked, shared

The mobility growth paradigm

Going car-free

Careless car-free?

Conclusions: Beyond cars, beyond growth

Chapter 5: Utopias, dystopias, biketopias

In praise of slowness

Early biketopias of modernity and progress

Fast cycling for urban regeneration and growth

Slow bicycle utopias

Mad Max on a bike

Convivial biketopias

Bike spaces of hope

Conclusions: A break from growth

Chapter 6: Senses

On growing pedals

Velomobility at a glance

Grow ears, awaken the whole body

Working the inner body: balance and movement

Pain festivities: ‘sufferfest’

How to achieve eurhythmia?

Conclusions: Flowing towards eudaimonia

Chapter 7: Sociabilities

Cycling as interaction order and sociable practice

The Ride-Formation

Swarm sociabilities

Conversation sociabilities

Carnivalesque sociabilities

Club sociabilities

The chain-gang

The accordion

Conclusions: Fluid Ride-Formations

Chapter 8: Slowness

Need for speed

Tactics of slowness

Affecting the slow

Slowness, sufficiency, de-growth

Conclusions: A norm of sufficiency

Chapter 9: Conclusions

　

O autorze

Cosmin Popan is Research Assistant in the Department of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University