What is Mobility Justice?
By Clyve Lawrence
Our built environment shapes us. The places we grow up and live in hugely affect our access to healthcare, education, employment, and recreation. Our ability to physically enjoy this access depends on several demographic factors like race, gender, income, or geography.
Movement is inherently political. It is critical to individual freedom, community connection, and opportunity. And our current system has a vested interest in maintaining (or limiting) certain groups’ mobility.
Indeed, mobility — how people, ideas, and things move within a system — determines our achievement. If a person does not have agency over their movement, they do not have full access to the vibrancy of the world around them. They do not have self-determination. In many ways, power informs the governance and accessibility of mobility.
Several barriers to mobility perpetuate inequality and limit opportunities for advancement. One prominent historical example in the United States is segregation. In the Southern US, state and local governments created a system of laws designed to hinder the movement and freedom of Black Americans. Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation in public spaces and transportation. These laws denied Black people equal access to education, employment, and healthcare while restricting their right to vote.
Today, we still see barriers to mobility, particularly for marginalized communities. For example, inadequate public transportation infrastructure in urban areas can limit access to jobs and services. Low-income communities may not have access to personal vehicles and must rely on poor public transportation to travel. These communities often have longer commutes and few alternative options.
Another example concerns health. Low-income communities and communities of color are more likely to live in areas with high levels of pollution, which negatively impacts health and limits opportunities for outdoor recreation.
There are countless other examples of barriers to mobility, all of which produce the same outcome: limiting peoples’ ability to fully enjoy the social networks of community, resources, and information.
Mobility justice aims to address these issues. It is a vision where people of all backgrounds and abilities feel safe using our streets, a framework advocating for everyone to have equal access to movement. It recognizes that the ability to move freely and safely is a fundamental right and that mobility is critical for individual and collective well-being.
Mobility justice also recognizes the inextricable links between mobility, social justice, and political power. It seeks to challenge the systems and structures that limit mobility for particular groups and promote democratic decision-making around urban infrastructure and policy.
Achieving mobility justice requires us to address the root causes of inequality and create a built environment that is more fair, accessible, sustainable, and equitable. It is possible, and it is possible today.
