Movement: how to take back our streets and transform our lives

(Paperback)

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Our dependence on cars is damaging our health - and the planet's. Movement asks radical questions about how we approach the biggest urban problem, reflecting on the apparent successes of Dutch cities. Making our communities safer, cleaner, and greener starts with asking the fundamental question- who do our streets belong to Although there have been experiments in decreasing traffic in city centres, and an increase in bike-friendly infrastructure, there is still a long way to go. In this enlightening and provocative book, Thalia Verkade and Marco te Brommelstroet confront their own underlying beliefs and challenge us to rethink our ideas about transport to put people at the centre of urban design. 'Readable, thoughtful, and provocative, this book provides an entertaining overview of how the Netherlands became a mecca for cycling. The authors make a strong case for putting cycling at the heart of our transport systems, but also aren't shy about identifying some flaws in the Dutch approach, and considering how other countries could learn from them.' -Ben Coates, author of Why the Dutch Are Different 'The book offers many unprecedented insights into traffic and mobility, convincingly poses the question of how important mobility actually is and suggests an answer to that. Movement is a compelling thinker.' -Jury citation from the Brussels Prize 2021 'This book will - no question - make you think in new ways. Why have we surrendered our cities to cars What might it be like to inhabit a space designed for people instead It's exciting and hopeful - this we can do!' -Bill McKibben, author The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon

Author Bio

Thalia Verkade (Author) Thalia Verkade (1979) lives in Rotterdam. She has been a staff writer and foreign correspondent for the Dutch national newspapers NRC Handelsblad and nrc.next. For the ad-free slow journalism platform De Correspondent, she has written extensively about the topics she loves most- language, mobile technology, and technocracy. Marco te Br mmelstroet (Author) Marco te Bommelstroet is the chair of Urban Mobility Futures at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research at the University of Amsterdam. His teaching centres on the relationship between land use developments and mobility behaviour. As founding academic director of the Urban Cycling Institute he strengthens the links between academia and how cycling relates to the urban and social environment. Cycling offers him a lens to radically reimagine the way in which society thinks about mobility, transport systems, and the street. His 'Fietsprofessor' (The Cycling Professor) Twitter account has over 60,000 followers.