ABSTRACT
The urban scale is an essential part of the global ‘network society’ with new forms of social and cultural life emerging and with strong impacts on ecological conditions. Mobilities research plays an important role in the future of cities by offering a strong approach that bridges research disciplines and traditions. In this introductory chapter we discuss some of the work that has had an impact on our understanding of cities today. The chosen excerpts are primarily sociological perspectives on societal processes and how mobilities—even when only related to as a technical fixture called transportation—have had a defining role in the cities we know today. We discuss the city, its planning and social life, and through this narrative we also present a framework for the topics put forward by the contributing authors as they reach into the future of networked urban mobilities.
