ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the people might develop a history of transport to stimulate debate about how to move themselves and their things in future. The future of mobility is a topic that can be raised purely in the context of present challenges and opportunities, but there are advantages in considering it in relation to history. With the emergence of automobility in the United States of America (USA), for instance, streets came to be thought of more as thoroughfares in a wider system of urban circulation than as public spaces and a locale for neighbourhood life. The railway companies of the early twentieth century were well aware of the aspirational value of mobility in a fast-growing consumer market. In the field of transport, there are plenty of influential voices bemoaning the inadequacies of the UK's transport, but few, particularly in government circles, are yet willing to say that more mobility is not always a Good Thing.
