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Theorising infrastructure: a politics of spaces and edges

Peter Cox

in The Politics of Cycling Infrastructure: Spaces and (In)Equality

This chapter seeks to engage with a selected range of current theorisations of the politics of infrastructure, and to apply them to specific cases of cycle-specific infrastructures. It subsequently ... More

This chapter seeks to engage with a selected range of current theorisations of the politics of infrastructure, and to apply them to specific cases of cycle-specific infrastructures. It subsequently relates the ideas of social and spatial justice arising from these perspectives to bell hooks’ consideration of marginalisation, to consider how the patterns of marginalisation and mainstreaming revealed in the contributions to this volume might be understood through a lens of a critical and radical politics. It is concluded that the political challenge of cycling infrastructure provision is to balance between a series of contending needs. Provision is required that provides protection from the very real fears and dangers produced by the dominance of automobility. Simultaneously, this needs to be both inclusive and to send a message that all users are valuable. Yet both of these also need to recognise and communicate that the ultimate goal of cycle infrastructure provision should not be to provide a safe and comfortable means to ride whilst maintaining a world dominated by automobility. Instead, in the context of the paradigm shift needed in transport thinking, cycling mobility and its infrastructures need to present a radical challenge to automobility.Less

What constructs a cycle city? A comparison of policy narratives in Newcastle and Bremen

Katja Leyendecker

Peter Cox and Till Koglin (eds)

in The Politics of Cycling Infrastructure: Spaces and (In)Equality

Concerning cycling, Newcastle (UK) and Bremen (Germany) are very different cities. The former having less than 1% of trips cycled, the latter nearly 25% with hundreds of miles of cycle infrastructure ... More

Concerning cycling, Newcastle (UK) and Bremen (Germany) are very different cities. The former having less than 1% of trips cycled, the latter nearly 25% with hundreds of miles of cycle infrastructure in place. Stemming from that difference, are there lessons to be learnt? What makes a cycle city? This chapter is critically dissecting the transport policies for the two cities. Through that is the story and strength of institutional automobility slowly but relentlessly emerges – in both cities is shown. However, in Bremen democratic processes are more intact. Whilst in Newcastle change will have to overcome two obstacles: a paradigmatic step change in technical transport planning as well as an emancipation of local politics.Less

Alternative Modernity?: Everyday Practices of Elite Mobility in Communist Hungary, 1956–1980

György Péteri

in The Socialist Car: Automobility in the Eastern Bloc

This chapter examines how the state socialist order asserted its systemic exceptionalism (a pattern of development distinguishing socialism from capitalism) in the field of modern mobility, using ... More

This chapter examines how the state socialist order asserted its systemic exceptionalism (a pattern of development distinguishing socialism from capitalism) in the field of modern mobility, using Communist Hungary as a case study. More specifically, it considers the everyday practices of elite mobility in Hungary during the period 1956–1980 by focusing on the members of the salaried apparatus of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (HSWP). The chapter begins with a discussion of policies aimed at containing the rising costs of automobility and to put a stop to sneaking privatization. It then shows how the everyday practices of apparatus mobility became a major force behind private car-based mobility at the expense of both collective transport and personal car rental and sharing. It also tackles the question of whether state socialism could assert an alternative modernity antithetical to capitalist modernity. It argues that the socialist mode of consumption failed to assert itself in the field of personal transportation in Communist Hungary.Less

Planning for Mobility: Designing City Centers and New Towns in the USSR and the GDR in the 1960s

Elke Beyer

in The Socialist Car: Automobility in the Eastern Bloc

This chapter examines how planning for mobility, especially automobility, shaped designs for city centers in the USSR and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) during the 1960s. Taking the first ... More

This chapter examines how planning for mobility, especially automobility, shaped designs for city centers in the USSR and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) during the 1960s. Taking the first All-Union Conference on Urban Planning held in Moscow in 1960, it traces the evolution of urbanist debates in the architectural press and the urban design practice of the two countries. It discusses the general plans for Togliatti in 1968 and Moscow in 1971, both of which represented official approval of a definitive model for the modern Soviet city, and situates the fragmentary realization of these plans within the context of urbanism. The chapter also considers conceptions of space and “utopias of usage” at the root of urban planning and how central urban spaces were engineered and represented as spaces of movement.Less

Customizing and Souping-Up in the 1930s and ’40s

Gary S. Cross

in Machines of Youth: America's Car Obsession

The automobile created a special if ultimately limited opportunity for white working class boys to acquire and display distinctly modern mechanical skills not only in driving, but in repairing, ... More

The automobile created a special if ultimately limited opportunity for white working class boys to acquire and display distinctly modern mechanical skills not only in driving, but in repairing, restoring, and retrofitting used cars. This offered opportunities for cross-generational bonding (when fathers and sons shared mechanical interests), but also for enabling youth to become vanguards of mechanical progress, leaving dads and granddads behind. The car reinforced the gender divide by putting young males in control of the wheel. Female teens also drove, and the car became for many women early in the twentieth century, a mark of liberation; but more common was the identification of the machine and automobility with the male. This culture of customizing and souping up had its roots quite naturally in the world of young adult men that was gradually passed down to teens. This transition may have been inevitable, but required crossing a number of bridges.Less

Cruising and Parking: The Peer Culture of Teen Automobility, 1950–70

Gary S. Cross

in Machines of Youth: America's Car Obsession

Beyond the mostly male realm of customizing and racing was another realm of youth in cars—where a distinct high school peer culture thrived. On roads and in back seats of cars young Americans found ... More

Beyond the mostly male realm of customizing and racing was another realm of youth in cars—where a distinct high school peer culture thrived. On roads and in back seats of cars young Americans found settings of competition, communion, and sexuality. There, mid-twentieth century American teens learned how to be one of the boys or girls, discovering the rites of social and sexual disclosure, and much else. These rituals of automobility both prepared the young for modern adulthood and yet also often deferred and evaded that future. This chapter explores the folkways of cruising and parking defined teen male competition and transformed courtship/dating that especially affected females.Less

The city and the road

Dimitris Dalakoglou

in The Road: An Ethnography of (Im)mobility, Space, and Cross-border Infrastructures in the Balkans

The urban topography of Gjirokastër city, where part of the current ethnography was based, is under a continuous process of change during the last two decades. The city has in fact been relocated ... More

The urban topography of Gjirokastër city, where part of the current ethnography was based, is under a continuous process of change during the last two decades. The city has in fact been relocated around the traffic infrastructure, centralising the road which leads to the Albanian-Greek border since the borders opened, in 1990. This appears to be a somewhat predictable spatial transformation for a city which has one third of its population living as migrants in Greece and consumes almost entirely imported Greek products since 1990. However, this transformation of the urban formation is a complex process. This chapter enlightens on how the postsocialist city is enlarged dramatically and how it is reconfigured spatially in reference to the road infrastructure. It will address two main processes, the postsocialist introduction of the car-related spatial practices and the relocation of the urban centre around the road.Less

Introduction

Lewis H. Siegelbaum

in The Socialist Car: Automobility in the Eastern Bloc

This book examines the place of the motor car in the state socialist countries of Eastern Europe, including the USSR. In particular, it considers the dynamic tension between cars and socialism, a ... More

This book examines the place of the motor car in the state socialist countries of Eastern Europe, including the USSR. In particular, it considers the dynamic tension between cars and socialism, a tension that inhered in the Socialist Car. Albania under the dictator Enver Hoxha represents an extreme case in the awkward fit between cars and communism. Only Kim Il Sung’s Democratic People’s Republic of Korea matched its ban on private car ownership. Elsewhere in the socialist camp the situation was more complicated yet more fascinating. This book explores how the automobile intertwines with the material cultures and consumption practices of the socialist Second World countries. It also discusses the ways that the West was implicated in the production and reception of the Socialist Car and hence of the Eastern Bloc’s aspiration for an “alternative modernity,” a relationship theorized by Michael David-Fox as a transnational history of “entangled modernities.” Finally, it looks at the socialist car from another lens: “automobility”.Less

The Elusive People’s Car: Imagined Automobility and Productive Practices along the “Czechoslovak Road to Socialism” (1945–1968)

Valentina Fava

in The Socialist Car: Automobility in the Eastern Bloc

This chapter discusses the history of the automobile industry and automobility in Czechoslovakia between 1945 and 1968, with particular emphasis on the ideological and concrete development of the ... More

This chapter discusses the history of the automobile industry and automobility in Czechoslovakia between 1945 and 1968, with particular emphasis on the ideological and concrete development of the “people’s car.” It examines four moments of particular significance in the history of Czechoslovak automobility: the period between 1945 and 1948, including Alexander Taub’s consultancy; the launch of the first five-year plan (1949–1953), which brought about the marginalization of automobile production; the period that began in 1954, when the automobile was relaunched as a symbol of socialist technology; the period of reform (1963–1968), when the difficulties of the planned economy in coordinating automobile production became more and more evident. The chapter also considers changes in the organization of production that involved the main Czechoslovak auto producer, AZNP (Automobilové Závody, Národní Podnik) (formerly Ŝkoda Auto), after its nationalization. Finally, it shows how the production of the people’s car came into conflict with the ideals of socialism.Less

Automobility in Yugoslavia between Urban Planner, Market, and Motorist: The Case of Belgrade, 1945–1972

Brigitte Le Normand

in The Socialist Car: Automobility in the Eastern Bloc

This chapter examines the interactions between urban planners, drivers, and market socialism in Belgrade, Yugoslavia’s capital city, during the period 1945–1972. More specifically, it considers the ... More

This chapter examines the interactions between urban planners, drivers, and market socialism in Belgrade, Yugoslavia’s capital city, during the period 1945–1972. More specifically, it considers the evolution in urban planners’ attitude toward automobility from the adoption of Belgrade’s first master plan in 1950 to the adoption of a second master plan in 1972. Because Belgrade’s transformation began immediately at the end of World War II, it also offers a window into urban planning at the inception of the socialist regime. In the new socialist Yugoslavia, the task of rebuilding the capital city after its devastation in two waves of bombardments during the war was given to architect Nikola Dobrović, who was succeeded by Miloŝ Somborski. This chapter shows that the private automobile was more powerful than the authoritarian, even totalitarian, proclivities of Belgrade’s socialist planners.Less

On the Streets of a Truck-Building City: Naberezhnye Chelny in the Brezhnev Era

Esther Meier

in The Socialist Car: Automobility in the Eastern Bloc

This chapter examines the symbolic significance of streets, and how people took possession of them, in the Soviet city of Naberezhnye Chelny during the Brezhnev era. Naberezhnye Chelny was designed ... More

This chapter examines the symbolic significance of streets, and how people took possession of them, in the Soviet city of Naberezhnye Chelny during the Brezhnev era. Naberezhnye Chelny was designed to be a model city of the future. It was intented to make good, in urban planning terms, on the promises given by the political leadership to the workers in return for their participation in this large project. These promises included a car and an apartment, education, vacation time, and recreation. The chapter first provides a background on truck factory KamAZ and Naberezhnye Chelny before focusing on the vehicles—streetcars, buses, trucks, and cars—that traveled the city streets. It then considers the public transportation system in Naberezhnye Chelny and the extent to which the use of private vehicles was taken into account in the planning of the city. It shows that traffic planning did not assign preferential status to the Socialist Car over buses and the streetcar, and suggests that automobility failed to appear in provincial towns such as Naberezhnye Chelny during the Brezhnev era.Less

“Little Tsars of the Road”: Soviet Truck Drivers and Automobility, 1920s–1980s

Lewis H. Siegelbaum

in The Socialist Car: Automobility in the Eastern Bloc

This chapter examines the automobility of truck drivers in the Soviet Union from the 1920s to the 1980s. It looks at truckers partly from the perspective of labor history—who became truckers, the ... More

This chapter examines the automobility of truck drivers in the Soviet Union from the 1920s to the 1980s. It looks at truckers partly from the perspective of labor history—who became truckers, the conditions of their work, relations among them and with other motorists, their social status, and the extent to which and why these elements changed over time. It also considers the broader cultural significance associated with truck drivers and driving. The chapter first discusses Two Drivers (Ekhali dva shofera), a feature film by Aleksandr Kott, and how it resonates with generations of people and especially truck drivers. It then explores truck drivers’ self-sacrificial heroism during the Great Patriotic War, along with their professionalism and their symbiotic relationship with car owners. It also describes the experiences of a real-live truck driver in the procurement and distribution of goods.Less

Women and Cars in Soviet and Russian Society

Corinna Kuhr-Korolev

in The Socialist Car: Automobility in the Eastern Bloc

This chapter examines the relationship of women to cars and society in Russia and the Soviet Union since 1990, with particular emphasis on questions of automobility, gender relations, women’s ... More

This chapter examines the relationship of women to cars and society in Russia and the Soviet Union since 1990, with particular emphasis on questions of automobility, gender relations, women’s emancipation, daily life, and consumption. In order to understand car culture from a feminine perspective, the chapter analyzes the meaning of cars for women and the extent to which these meanings have changed over time, especially in recent years, as the number of women drivers has risen dramatically. It also explores whether women, like men, cherished the Soviet dream of consumption, owning a car, and whether they made the usual connection between driving and freedom or independence. Finally, it discusses the relationship, if any, between women’s driving and the emancipation of women, along with women’s attitudes about automobiles and driving.Less

Automobility and Freedom

John M. Meyer

in Engaging the Everyday: Environmental Social Criticism and the Resonance Dilemma

Automobility – inclusive of both the physical and cultural aspects of the practice of private ownership and use of automobiles – shapes modern life the world over. Automobility generates a flexible ... More

Automobility – inclusive of both the physical and cultural aspects of the practice of private ownership and use of automobiles – shapes modern life the world over. Automobility generates a flexible source of mobility, privacy, and independence that is often central to the contemporary conception of individual freedom. Yet especially when it becomes the singularly dominant mode of transportation, automobility can also become a coercive practice that consumes massive amounts of space, requires lengthy commutes, increases dependence, and expands state surveillance, in addition to its environmental impacts. This chapter explores automobility’s centrality to conceptions of freedom, both respecting its attraction and identifying spaces for the development of a discourse of freedom. The latter advances alternatives to the hegemony of the private automobile, rooted in a more expansive notion of human flourishing.Less

The car, the streetscape and inter-ethnic dynamics

Charles Husband, Yunis Alam, Jörg Hüttermann, and Joanna Fomina

in Lived diversities: Space, place and identities in the multi-ethnic city

Chapter 6 emerged as an irresistible topic which very powerfully augmented many of the points made elsewhere in this book. Whilst acknowledging the significance of the car and the urban myths about ... More

Chapter 6 emerged as an irresistible topic which very powerfully augmented many of the points made elsewhere in this book. Whilst acknowledging the significance of the car and the urban myths about the driving habits of young Asian men; this chapter provides at one level an insight into the intensive investment of individuals into a particular interest (in this case their cars), to the extent that it comes to constitute the basis for a very strong sub-cultural identification amongst its practitioners. This chapter is redolent of untrammelled enthusiasms, and of networks of sharing, that constitute an example of an invisible vitality within a community like Manningham. It points to the importance of identifying and acknowledging the potential of such enthusiasms for enriching lives in urban contexts that may to others appear to be without charm. The car also provides an insight into the differential employment of social and economic wealth within and across ethnic communities. This chapter also necessarily notes the unfortunate capacity of the car to provide a particularly potent means of inter-ethnic irritation on the streetscape of an urban area. The car is revealed to be a potent symbolic marker of intergroup relations.Less

Theorising Automotive Consciousness

Lynne Pearce

in Drivetime: Literary Excursions in Automotive Consciousness

This chapter sets out the ways in which driving may be seen as paradigmatic, as well as formative, of human thought by comparing the way in which the mind travels through time and space on its ... More

This chapter sets out the ways in which driving may be seen as paradigmatic, as well as formative, of human thought by comparing the way in which the mind travels through time and space on its everyday cognitive journeys with the way in which drivers engage with the spatial and temporal landscapes through which they pass. To this end, it considers the association between driving and phenomenology – how driving can facilitate and promote phenomenological thought – along with other psychological and philosophical models (most notably W.H. Gombrich theory of ‘schema and correction’ and Henri Bergson on ‘déjà vu’) which allow for a rather more complex exchange of perception and memory in the driver’s consciousness. The chapter also outlines the author’s conceptualisation of individual car journeys as specific and non-reproducible events (i.e. the ‘driving-event’) and provides an overview of the recent work in the field of auto/mobilities scholarship to which the project speaks. In addition, the chapter addresses the book’s methodological standpoint and, in particular, what literary and other texts can contribute to auto/mobilities research that is not available by other means.Less

Searching

Lynne Pearce

in Drivetime: Literary Excursions in Automotive Consciousness

This chapter conceptualises a mode of driving – and a type of driver-consciousness characterised as ‘searching’. It focuses on the way in which the car may be used to explore and ‘probe’ the ... More

This chapter conceptualises a mode of driving – and a type of driver-consciousness characterised as ‘searching’. It focuses on the way in which the car may be used to explore and ‘probe’ the landscapes through which it passes when driven slowly (i.e., at speeds not in excess of 30 mph) and the phenomenological and other reflections to which this might give rise. The textual case-study explores this practice through two Scottish motoring texts from the early twentieth century: H.V. Morton’s In Search of Scotland (1929) and Edwin Muir’s Scottish Journey (1935). It also advocates a re-evaluation of the type of driving that may be enjoyed at slow speeds and in ‘little’ cars from a cultural and environmental perspective, and concludes with a discussion of the benefits of small and/or ‘stripped-down’ electric vehicles such as the Renault Twizy.Less

Fleeing

Lynne Pearce

in Drivetime: Literary Excursions in Automotive Consciousness

In response to two of the most celebrated philosophical texts on twentieth-century automobility – Jean Baudrillard’s America (1986) and Paul Virilio’s Negative Horizon (1984) – this chapter argues ... More

In response to two of the most celebrated philosophical texts on twentieth-century automobility – Jean Baudrillard’s America (1986) and Paul Virilio’s Negative Horizon (1984) – this chapter argues against the notion that driving at speed ‘suspends thought’ and is thus symptomatic of the blindness, amnesia and nihilism of post/modernity. By contrast, and through close readings of two North American ‘road trip’ texts written in the 1950s (Patricia Highsmith’s Carol (1952) and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (1957)), the chapter proposes that it is the pre-existing and/or psychological objectives that drivers and passengers bring to their road-trips (and other driving-events) that will determine the intrinsic quality of the experience. The symbolic association between cars and the desire for escape – especially in literary and other texts – overlooks the fact that that it is not speed per se that turns a driving-event into a ‘flight’ but rather the state of mind of the driver when he or she enters the car. While the drivers and passengers of one car, travelling at speed, may be notionally ‘blind’ to the landscapes through which they pass, those in another (or, indeed, the same driver on another occasion) may be fully aware of their surroundings.Less