Abstract
Urban traffic plans are authentic political acts as they reallocate resources among taxpaying citizens and because they entail substantial change to people’s everyday life. Nonetheless, traffic plans are not submitted to rigorous political control. Consequently, we leave it to technocrats to undertake a political function they are not supposed to perform. This brings injustice and inefficiency. Two questions ought to be raised: (a) should the plan process allow for the consensus of the minority and to what extent? (b) who are the professionals who can best advise planners in structuring the process? The question of consensus is a crucial one in traffic planning, especially when approached from an environmental point of view. Our value system, as it impinges on the environment, is a relatively recent construction. That is why it is difficult in practice to choose among conflicting goals. Two dangerous personalities, i.e. the enlightened despot and the passive-aggressive leader, often cooperate in urban politics and together they create disasters. The traffic plan should be a communication tool and we need professionals to use it. As a consequence, the social research involved will be sophisticated and will lead to a better and more democratic information-communication-education campaign. In this chapter I provide some ideas about how to approach mobility and will challenge the “more mobility, more wealth paradox”.
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Notes
- 1.
Gunnar Myrdal’s studies on objectivity in social science were part of my basic readings during my doctoral studies, so that the problem of objectivity and neutrality has always been one of my major concerns as a social researcher.
- 2.
I hope that the reader will not take too seriously my amateur psychoanalytical effort. I owe Crozier and Friedberg (1980) the image of the social scientist as an enlightened despot on which I have elaborated. Also Gunnar Myrdal was aware of this problem and treated it extensively (and seriously) in the methodological sections of his “Asian Drama” and in “Value in Social Theory”. Ironically, he maintained that we should carry on an anthropological study on the social scientist community since we are not less interesting than new immigrants, prostitutes, problematic youth and so on as reported in chapter one.
- 3.
Even less can I guarantee that I need not see a shrink for some detrimental hidden personality of my own.
- 4.
Frankly, I do not regret that, once in a while, I was well paid for my research. I sincerely lament that the public money was not used effectively. This situation explains how change is difficult. You need to be able to commission the right research; then, you should carry it on properly and honestly; eventually you need people around you who can apply it effectively. If just one of these steps is missing, the entire process fails.
- 5.
This is a typical example of the encounter between the passive-aggressive politician and the wannabe-enlightened-despot, except that I honestly had no intention to act as the latter, but eventually I ended up being in that exact position.
- 6.
From this pamphlet (Poli 2006) I have drawn some ideas for this book.
- 7.
It would be interesting to discuss who is actually less presumptuous: technicians who dream perfection and believe in a single undisputed truth; or politicians/planners who aim at conflict solving in the frame of a low-key, but consensual project. From a certain point of view, the former are more modest because they fight for their own ideas and let the free-market competition of opinion choose the winner. The latter assume that they can understand others’ ways of thinking, therefore placing themselves at a superior level.
- 8.
After having written a full book raising questions rather than giving answers, it would be odd if I now presented a solution, i.e. a UMP model. The example that I am going to present in the following sections, is nonetheless intended to expand the reasoning instead of giving a solution.
References
Crozier M, Friedberg E (1980) Actors and systems: the politics of collective actions. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Hirsch F (1976) The social limits to growth. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London
Hirschman AO (1977) The Passions and the interests. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Jamieson D (2002) Morality’s progress. Clarendon Press, Oxford
Poli C (1994b) La città sicura. Rischi ambientali e politiche di intervento urbano a difesa della salute. Guerini Studio, Milano
Poli C (2006) Rivoluzione Traffico. Meno mobilità più comunicazione. Robin Edizioni, Roma
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Poli, C. (2011). Planning Approaches. In: Mobility and Environment. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1220-1_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1220-1_10
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