Urban structures and daily mobility patterns in a city of long distances—the case of Muscat/Oman

Abstract

Population growth, urban sprawl and a high degree of car dependency as well as slowly rising petrol prices contribute towards increasing challenges for everyday urban mobility in Muscat, Oman. Until now, only a few empirical studies have dealt with urban mobility in Oman. Therefore, this article draws mainly on our own empirical findings to answer the following questions: What do daily and weekly mobility patterns look like in Muscat? How do these practices differ depending on the social position of the household, i.e. their nationality, income and education? Which interdependent effects can be discerned between everyday mobility practices and the fragmented and segregated urban structures? Since our research questions focus on the interrelations between urban structures and individual mobility, we chose a mixed-methods approach including methods derived both from social and spatial research. This article in particular draws on our quantitative survey covering 850 households and extensive mappings of three selected case study areas and secondary data analysis.