Future-making and the shifting sociotechnical imaginaries around urban mobility in the city of Hamburg

Abstract

There is growing awareness of the importance of the role of sociotechnical imaginaries (STI) in understanding and supporting transformations toward sustainability (Beck et al., 2021). Future-making, as the many and diverse practices and techniques, through which actors anticipate, imagine, predict, etc. the future can provide insights into how STIs are shaped and consider the potential implications for action in the present. This research investigates changes in the ways through which the future is imagined in a range of long-term municipal transportation planning practices in the city of Hamburg, Germany, between 2000 and 2023. During this period, there have been significant changes in the institutional arrangements that govern urban mobility as central actors have set about transforming the mobility system in a variety of ways. Using qualitative content analysis, the approach draws on a selection of strategic documents that outline long-term municipal transportation planning, as well as semi-structured interviews with practitioners involved in the development of these documents. Particular attention is paid to the ways (e.g. techniques, practices) through which actors involved in urban mobility planning make sense of the future. Through comparing different phases of development in recent history, the research demonstrates changes in the approaches utilised to conceive of predicted, desirable, plausible, and probable futures as well as changes in the promises and aspirations associated with the mobility system of the future over time.

References

Beck, S., Jasanoff, S., Stirling, A. and Polzin, C. (2021), “The governance of sociotechnical transformations to sustainability”, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Vol. 49, pp. 143–152.