On 17 November the seminar series Cities & Mobilities featured the talk by Adrian Favell “Diversities and Mobilities in Cities: The Case of London and Brexit” . You can see the full talk on the website of the Centre for Urban Studies.
One on the key questions that emerged in presentations, the lecture and the discussion, kicked off by Olga Soodi was why people move to particular cities, what imaginaries inspire their journeys and then how they themselves then both adapt to and transform the city. We were talking about the attraction of particular cities for some people coming from far away “just to be there” and the desire to leave those very same cities that other people experience. Does it mean that these mobilities are less about cities and their specificities and more about people’s dreams and aspirations? According to Adrian Favell, it seems that “there is value in the very act of movement”. And Olga Sooudi pointed to a paradox: cities are shaped by these journeys that may be inspired by unique features of different cities, and yet it is those journeys that may contribute to “flattening” of cities and emergence of generic features – at the same time as these journeys also generate spaces of diversity.
Read more about the Cities & Mobilities Seminar series and come join the discussion!
Cities and Mobilities 