IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v40y2003i8p1609-1625.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Aesthetic Experience of Traffic in the Modern City

Author

Listed:
  • Nigel Taylor

    (School of Planning and Architecture, Faculty of the Built Environment, University of the West of England, Frenchay Campus, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol, BS16 1QY, UK. Nigel.Taylor@uwe.ac.uk)

Abstract

In spite of the ubiquity of the motor vehicle in modern cities, there has been relatively little study of its impact on our experience of urban life. After summarising the most significant objectively visible impacts of the motor vehicle on urban form, this article offers a phenomenological analysis and account of our aesthetic experience of road traffic, from the points of view of people both inside motor vehicles as drivers or passengers, and outside vehicles as pedestrians or cyclists. Two aspects of our aesthetic experience are described: our sensory experience of traffic, and then how traffic is experienced cognitively, or at the level of meaning. The article identifies various ways in which 'automobility' has come to dominate our contemporary aesthetic experience of cities.

Suggested Citation

  • Nigel Taylor, 2003. "The Aesthetic Experience of Traffic in the Modern City," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 40(8), pages 1609-1625, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:40:y:2003:i:8:p:1609-1625
    DOI: 10.1080/0042098032000094450
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/0042098032000094450
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/0042098032000094450?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mimi Sheller & John Urry, 2000. "The City and the Car," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 737-757, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Clayton, William & Musselwhite, Charles, 2013. "Exploring changes to cycle infrastructure to improve the experience of cycling for families," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 54-61.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cameron White, 2016. "The conditions of practical action: Neoliberalism and sustainability in the Australian road construction industry," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(8), pages 1501-1515, December.
    2. Junxi Qian, 2015. "No right to the street: Motorcycle taxis, discourse production and the regulation of unruly mobility," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(15), pages 2922-2947, November.
    3. Miwa Matsuo, 2020. "Carpooling and drivers without household vehicles: gender disparity in automobility among Hispanics and non-Hispanics in the U.S," Transportation, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 1631-1663, August.
    4. Farber, Steven & Páez, Antonio, 2009. "My car, my friends, and me: a preliminary analysis of automobility and social activity participation," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 216-225.
    5. Ayona Datta, 2014. "Gendered Nature and Urban Culture: The Dialectics of Gated Developments in Izmir, Turkey," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 1363-1383, July.
    6. Jonas Larsen, 2017. "The making of a pro-cycling city: Social practices and bicycle mobilities," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(4), pages 876-892, April.
    7. Luca Nitschke, 2020. "Reconstituting Automobility: The Influence of Non-Commercial Carsharing on the Meanings of Automobility and the Car," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-20, August.
    8. Wilson, Adam & Mitra, Raktim, 2020. "Implementing cycling infrastructure in a politicized space: Lessons from Toronto, Canada," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    9. Hirschhorn, Fabio & Paulsson, Alexander & Sørensen, Claus H. & Veeneman, Wijnand, 2019. "Public transport regimes and mobility as a service: Governance approaches in Amsterdam, Birmingham, and Helsinki," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 178-191.
    10. Gordon Waitt & Theresa Harada, 2012. "Driving, Cities and Changing Climates," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(15), pages 3307-3325, November.
    11. Lake Sagaris, 2015. "Lessons from 40 years of planning for cycle‐inclusion: Reflections from Santiago, Chile," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(1), pages 64-81, February.
    12. Schwanen, Tim, 2019. "Transport geography, climate change and space: opportunity for new thinking," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    13. Paget-Seekins, Laurel, 2015. "Bus rapid transit as a neoliberal contradiction," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 115-120.
    14. Rubin, Ori, 2015. "Contact between parents and adult children: The role of time constraints, commuting and automobility," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 76-84.
    15. Wright, Chris & Curtis, Barry, 2005. "Reshaping the motor car," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 11-22, January.
    16. Reigner, Hélène & Brenac, Thierry, 2019. "Safe, sustainable… but depoliticized and uneven – A critical view of urban transport policies in France," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 218-234.
    17. Sovacool, Benjamin K. & Axsen, Jonn, 2018. "Functional, symbolic and societal frames for automobility: Implications for sustainability transitions," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 730-746.
    18. Jones, Alasdair & Goodman, Anna & Roberts, Helen & Steinbach, Rebecca & Green, Judith, 2013. "Entitlement to concessionary public transport and wellbeing: A qualitative study of young people and older citizens in London, UK," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 202-209.
    19. Ferdman, Avigail, 2021. "Well-being and mobility: A new perspective," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 44-55.
    20. Mimi Sheller, 2023. "Public spaces of transport as mobile public spheres and atmospheric publics," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(15), pages 3158-3164, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:40:y:2003:i:8:p:1609-1625. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.