Towards post-growth cities: the cultural politics of mobility transitions in Barcelona and London

Europe is at a crossroads: decades of rising inequality, austerity and inflation, mounting ecological pressures and increasingly severe impacts of climate change have exposed the failure of our growth-driven economic and political systems to care for people and the planet. The science is unequivocal that action is needed within the decade, technical and policy 'solutions' abound, and yet political polarisation. Wider societal climate action faces an impasse forged by complex and deeply engrained cultural political divisions that merit much greater interdisciplinary attention.

Far from bridging ideological divides and uniting Europeans behind a common cause, ambitious climate action is increasingly being drawn into the culture wars. Even though polls show that a large majority of Europeans worry about climate change, divisive right-wing populist ideologies are proving more successful at capturing imaginations across Europe than green-left proposals for social and ecological justice. In recent years, even cities – long hailed as progressive forces and sites of transformation – struggle to unite urban populations around a shared vision for a green and just transition.

The question is why this recent backlash against progressive urban mobility policies has occurred. How can we best study, explain, and, ultimately, overcome these escalating political polarisations? Which interdisciplinary framings are needed to illuminate the crucial role of cultural politics in unlocking the potential of urban mobility transitions? By ‘cultural politics’ we mean the way that political struggles over meaning are shaped by and play out through culture.

The project is funded by a British Academy International Interdisciplinary Knowledge Frontiers grant. It is delivered by a small team of researchers with backgrounds including history, art, geography, sociology, anthropology, political science, philosophy, and urban policy based at the LSE and the University of Amsterdam. The Knowledge Frontiers programme supports projects which engage with questions concerning the relationship between expertise, public understanding and policy delivery, and highlight the importance of collaboration between communities of practice, disciplines, capacities and borders.

We are studying two initiatives currently trying to transform how we move through city streets: Liveable Neighbourhoods in Islington, London and Superblocks in Eixample, Barcelona. We are interested in these initiatives because they claim to prioritise the wellbeing of people and the environment, allowing us to explore an alternative to our current model of urban development which prioritises economic growth above all else.

Both Liveable Neighbourhoods (previously known as Low Traffic Neighbourhoods) and Superblocks have been much debated in academia, in the media, and by policymakers and local communities, but we think that many of these debates have not focused enough on the vital role of culture in shaping how people experience such interventions. Our project therefore wants to understand how people’s responses to Liveable Neighbourhoods and Superblocks are formed and expressed through culture (e.g. shared history, memories, narratives, images, values, feelings and sensory experiences), and how focusing on the cultural politics of urban transitions could help us to overcome growing polarisation and open a more inclusive conversation about the future of the city.

We began the project by studying the history of Islington and Eixample and how urban mobility has changed over time in these neighbourhoods. What conflicts arose in the past and how did they play out? What transformative potential might be contained in stories from the past, and how do these stories relate to current mobility transitions? Having done that, we want to learn from people living, working and studying in these same neighbourhoods today: how do they experience LNs and Superblocks as they go about their everyday lives? What motivates people’s contrasting responses? How could we work together to re-imagine the future of the city, in a way which puts people and planet first but also recognises the complex and contrasting perspectives and aspirations of residents?

Through a combination of ethnographic research, participatory workshops, and interdisciplinary analysis, we hope to develop new, humanities-informed perspectives on how to navigate contestation and reimagine pathways toward sustainable and equitable urban change. Through this work, we aim to contribute meaningfully to ongoing academic debates surrounding post-growth urban mobility, while also offering actionable policy recommendations and strategic frameworks that address the entrenched polarisation of contemporary urban mobility discourses.