ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the core processes in modern Western societies, and relate these core processes to aspects of car mobility. Beck defines our western societies as risk societies. In his discourse three elements are central: risk, individualisation and modernity. Beck sees two phases in the development of the modern risk society namely The First Modernity and the Second Modernity. The First Modernity is related to the development of the modern nation state. The great highway systems of Western Europe were built in this First Modernity. Sennett calls this First Modernity the phase of Social capitalism. Stability was a characteristic of Social capitalism. In this Second Modernity people see the globalisation of capital and economic life, they next see phases in individualisation, flexibility in working arrangements, work without security, without life-long perspectives. The urban field has spread in recent decades. Peri-urbanisation is urbanisation at a relatively great distance from the central city.
