ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on what we argue is the 'elephant in the room': the very spatial configuration of our built environment, which we argue has a profound impact on the way we move in daily life and for tourism and leisure. It begins by examining three symptoms of what we term dystopian mobilities. These are: our obsession with expanding our spatial reach; our consequent neglect of place; and finally our flagrant disregard for a critical politics of place, one that leads us to accept the prescription of the car-based, mobility-intensive society. The chapter considers several ways in which urban thinkers past and present have explored sustainable mobility. The Garden City movement, pioneered by Ebenezer Howard (1898, 1902), is examined in which Howard argued for a reconnection between people and nature. The chapter provides two illustrations of sustainable places through focusing on the European example of Freiburg in Germany and the North-American case of Portland, Oregon, in the USA.
