Beyond the Ballot Box: Why the Best Mobility Plan is a Great Place
By Maciej Zacher, URBACT Ad-Hoc Expert
Democracy often feels like a series of checkboxes. We vote every few years, fill out the occasional survey, and attend the odd town hall meeting. But building a city - especially one focused on sustainable mobility - requires something deeper than counting votes. It requires understanding lives.
This was the core challenge the URBACT PUMA network tackled during our recent workshop in Nova Gorica, Slovenia. When we talk about Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMP), the conversation often drifts toward technicalities: bus frequencies, bike lane widths, and modal split percentages. These are crucial, of course. But we gathered to strip mobility back to its most fundamental truth: the spatial aspect.
