Exploring velotopian urban imaginaries: where Le Corbusier meets Constant?

Abstract

Cycling is increasingly seen as a solution to a large variety of urban problems, and as such continues to inspire innovations that aim to upscale cycling to unprecedented levels. Taken to the extreme, these ideas promise a future ‘Velotopia’ in which cycling constitutes a dominant or single mobility mode. Focusing its attention on Dutch cycling innovations and two recently envisaged cycling utopias by Steven Fleming and Cosmin Popan, the present paper offers a critical exploration of current velotopian urban imaginaries. It does so by tracing their ideological ancestry back to two visionary urban designs of the 20th century: the dense city of speed and efficiency of Le Corbusier, and the endless Babylon of Constant where mobility is a means of discovery, play and human interaction. Our analysis shows that both Corbusian and Constantian understandings of mobility are reflected in current velotopian imaginaries, not only in opposition but also in combination with each other. This combination of Corbusian and Constantian velotopian imaginaries, we suggest, has largely become part of mainstream urban discourses instead of providing a radical alternative to them.