Learning from the grassroots: A resourcefulness-based worldview for transport planning

Journal article

For decades sustainability has been proposed as a framework for a necessary paradigm shift in transport planning. However, critical scholars have shown how this concept, presented with a strong emphasis on economic growth, has limited capacity to truly challenge the current transport-related environmental and social crises or to constitute an ecological worldview.

This paper explores resourcefulness as a complementary concept to inform transport planning and practice. A resourcefulness-based worldview, informed by critical theory and challenging the current distribution of material, intellectual and civic resources, aims to constitute a political shift towards guaranteeing the conditions for challenging crises and for just deliberations concerning ecological futures.

The idea of resourcefulness is not proposed as a blueprint for transport planning, nor as a top-down theoretical framework. Rather, with a research approach inspired by Participatory Action Research, it is explored in dialogue with the practices of two grassroots movements: the Urban Mobility Forum and the Move Your City project. These movements have been proposing alternative transport planning views and practices in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and L’Aquila (Italy).

Authors: Verlinghieri, E

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Journal: Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice
• Volume: 133
• Pages: 364-377
• Publication date: 2019-08-23
• Acceptance date: 2019-08-23
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2019.07.001
• EISSN: 1879-2375
• ISSN: 0965-8564
• Language: English
• Keywords: Brazil; participatory action research; resourcefulness; Italy; worldview; sustainability; mobility justice