Mobility Practices in Peri-Urban Areas: Understanding Processes of Urban Regionalization in Milan Urban Region

Abstract

The paper focuses on mobility patterns as experienced in Lombardy peri-urban areas to investigate whether and if so how new processes of urban regionalization, (Soja in New companion to the city. Wiley-Blackwell, Cambridge, pp 679–689, 2011; Brenner in Towards a study of planetary urbanization. Iovis Verlage, Berlin, pp 14–27, 2013a; Brenner in Implosions/explosions: towards a study of planetary urbanization. Iovis Verlage, Berlin, 2013b; Young and Keil in Cities 27:87–95, 2010) can be better understood through a reorganization of mobility practices and the emergence of new geographies of movements. Some research evidence suggests that patterns linked to mobility, consumption and lifestyles in peri-urban areas are changing quickly, challenging the way we conceptualize the relationship that European city central areas entrain with their outer areas and suburbs. In the international literature on the subject, it is widely acknowledged that changing socio-economic conditions are calling for a parallel readjustment of the approaches adopted to assess such phenomena. This to a certain extent has been done; nonetheless, knowledge in the field remains fragmented and scattered across a number of disciplinary domains. In order to make sense of the evidence generated on mobility practices in peri-urban areas, this chapter investigates the diversity of mobility practices characterizing such areas in the Milan urban region (North Italy), highlighting possible transformative scenarios.