Mobility, accessibility and social equity

This paper deals with the new forms of social exclusion and inequalities emerging in contemporary cities in getting access to urban opportunities. According to the most recent approaches in sociological and geographical studies, by "accessibility" is meant the different possibility/ability to negotiate space and time in the everyday life so as to accomplish practices and maintain relations that people take to be necessary for normal social participation. There is a complex chain of factors that could produced constrained access to urban opportunities: social inequalities (gender, age, income, cultural resources...), the nature of individual and household timespace organization (time sovereignty, capacity and opportunities of mobility...), the nature of the transport system and the nature of time-space organization of the facilities and opportunities individuals are seeking to access. The paper is organized in two sections. The first one aims to explore the theoretical implications that derive from the idea of accessibility, focusing in particular to the relationships among mobility, accessibility and social equality. The second section of the paper presents the main results of a social survey realized in three Italian metropolitan area (Milan, Bologna and Turin), interviewing families with children who lives in central, peripheral and suburban neighbourhoods about their perception of access to the local services.

Keywords: Mobility, accessibility, social and spatial exclusion, services and urban opportunities

• Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions Filippo Accordino, Salvatore Eugenio Pappalardo, Daniele Codato, Francesca Peroni, Massimo De Marchi, pp.85 (ISBN:978-3-031-39205-4)

Barbara Borlini, Clara Melzi, Francesco Memo, Mobilità, accessibilità ed equità sociale in "SOCIOLOGIA URBANA E RURALE" 94/2011, pp 86-102, DOI: 10.3280/SUR2011-094007