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

Abstract

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).