Pnina Plaut

This chapter addresses the question of how the concept of social network can be used to address the dynamics of contemporary mobilities. It starts with a summary of ego-centric approaches for social network analysis as it has been applied in mobility and transport research so far. By exploring the ways in which the social meanings of travel are embedded in people’s practice of maintaining and forming social networks the authors show how social networking and mobilities are closely connected. The means and ‘technologies’ in which contemporary social life is organized deeply influences the shape and the emergence of social networks. Furthermore, the structures of everyday life are based on multiple networks: personal, social, technological and travel networks. Based on this assumption the article presents social networks in the context of the theory of mobilities and by discussing a range of other approaches that underpin the analysis of social networks. These concepts contribute to explaining the patterns observed in social networked structures and addressing the key ideas and foci of mobilities research. The authors illustrate this through contemporary examples such as automobility, automated mobilities and the recent developments in smart transport. In overall terms, it is argued here that transport research needs to pay more attention to social networks and from a range of (interdisciplinary) perspectives. Analyses of contemporary travel behaviour need to go beyond mere ego-centric approaches and focus on the explanatory power of social networks to understand the dynamics of mobilities.

Public participation, transparency, consensus, and collaboration are concepts generally accepted within highly developed countries of the world as planning dogma. Important questions relating to this dogma include the following: when integrated into the planning process, does it bring about consensusmore effectively? How do the various concepts underlying the dogma differ from one another? What have been the results when there have been systematic efforts to incorporate one or more of them? Can the experiences in countries where the dogma has been incorporated into the planning processes be readily transferred to other countries? This paper explores the results of the transfer of these concepts to the Israeli scene and the lessons learned that may have relevance to countries where planning is at a similar or less developed level than Israel’s.

While suburbanization and decentralization are familiar concepts in urban economics, there is a possibility that land gradients will not simply flatten over time, but actually invert themselves. This would mean that the traditional CBD or downtown ceases to act as the pinnacle or nucleus of the land/housing pricing function within the metropolitan area. Such a possibility has been noted in the theoretical literature and has been demonstrated empirically in a few cases. Such an urban “inversion” is shown to have occurred in Haifa, Israel. Beginning in the 1960s, the stock of privately-owned cars grew in Israel at one of the most rapid rates ever seen in any industrial country, with relatively little growth in transportation infrastructure.