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In this article, we argue that a place can become too well-connected, and that in this manner, its identity and key character can be ‘lost in transit’. Therefore, as the article points out, in the future urban planning of places highly affected by transit, it will be important to emphasize co-thinking of the concepts of ‘transit towns’ and ‘living towns’. We examine a place in Denmark which is particularly influenced by transit, namely the seaport town of Hirtshals. Through empirical and ethnographic explorations, the article seeks to reveal the challenges which a town primarily characterized by its role in goods transportation and ferry transit faces in terms of liveability and social quality for its inhabitants. This is performed through a case study using various practical methods, including document analysis, interviews, surveys, registration data, and physical-spatial place analysis.

Places are often thought of as “scenes” upon which social life takes place. Such a static place-conception lends itself to a particular instrumental and simplistic way of thinking about places. Instead, this paper seeks to illustrate that places are complex and relationally defined by multiple actors, human as well as non-human. The burning down of the Danish seaside hotel Svinkløv Badehotel is used as a lens through which such place complexity is understood. The paper presents a theoretical scaffolding for understanding how Svinkløv Badehotel became articulated as an authentic place in the wake of the dramatic event. Through a combined analysis of place materiality and public media representation, an account is given of how a disruptive event can work as a productive lens for understanding places and thus illustrate the analytical point of the paper: that places are never “empty,” but are configured by multiple human as well as non-human actors.

This book offers the reader a comprehensive understanding and the multitude of methods utilized in the research of urban mobilities with cities and ‘the urban’ as its pivotal axis. It covers theories and concepts for scholars and researchers to understand, observe and analyse the world of urban mobilities. The Handbook of Urban Mobilities facilitates the understanding of urban mobilities within a historic conscience of societal transformation. It explores key concepts and theories within the ‘mobilities turn’ with a particular urban framework, as well as the methods and tools at play when empirical, urban mobilities research is undertaken. This book also explores the urban mobilities practices related to commutes; particular modes of moving; the exploration of everyday life and embodied practices as they manifest themselves within urban mobilities; and the themes of power, conflict, and social exclusion. A discussion of urban planning, public control, and governance is also undertaken in the book, wherein the themes of infrastructures, technologies and design are duly considered. With chapters written in an accessible style, this handbook carries timely contributions within the contemporary state of the art of urban mobilities research. It will thus be useful for academics and students of graduate programmes and post-graduate studies within disciplines such as urban geography, political science, sociology, anthropology, urban planning, traffic and transportation planning, and architecture and urban design.

In the last 150 years, the oil industry has created economic growth and technological advances, with inherent consequences. But by the ‘peak oil’ in 2006, the industry had started to decline. This leaves a large number of disused facilities and structures to be decommissioned: in the North Sea alone, 600 oil rigs will be decommissioned in the next thirty years, creating potentially transformable ‘drosscapes’. These structures are part of a vast network, conceptualized in this paper as the Oil World. This network is often inaccessible and unfamiliar to, yet highly entangled with, the Everyday World. This paper discusses the conception of place in the Oil World, with the relocation and transformation of oil rigs from an urban design perspective as its point of departure, using Esbjerg, Denmark, as a case study. Combining a theoretical understanding of places as relational with a design thinking approach, the paper outlines future design scenarios..

Ny forskning fra Aalborg Universitet viser lovende potentialer for brugen af termiske kameraer i undersøgelse knyttet til trafik og bevægelse. De varmesensitive kameraer har flere fordele. For det første er man ude over problemstillingen med personidentifikation og dermed overvågning i offentlige rum. For det andet er metoden interessant, da ny forskning inden for Computer Vision-området giver mulighed for at registrere det, kameraet ”ser” som kvantitative data, der efterfølgende kan repræsenteres som bevægelseslinjer på kort eller såkaldte ”heat maps”, der viser intensiteter. Metoderne med termiske kameraer i trafikplanlægning giver dermed nye muligheder for valide datasæt, der omfatter fodgængere såvel som biler. I denne artikel diskuteres dette med udgangspunkt i et forskningsprojekt med termisk kameraovervågning i universitetets bygning på havnefronten i Aalborg.

The article addresses what happens, when an inhabited place obtain the properties normally connected with transit. The article explores a particular place in Denmark that is heavily influenced by transit, namely the town Hirtshals situated in the northern part of Jutland. The purpose is to gain knowledge about how such place and transit mobility influence each other. Theoretically the article analyses the case as a critical point of contact (Jensen, Morelli 2011). Methodologically this is done by exploring four influential layers: History, Flow, Materiality and Meaning. Based on this the article argues that an unbalance within the layers exist which negatively influence the functionality and experience of the place. Through an empirical and ethnography exploration the paper seeks to expose how a town primarily characterized by goods transportation and ferry transit is being challenged on its capacity to be a ‘place’ to live and of social importance to its inhabitants. The paper raises the key question: Can a place become too well connected and this in such a manner that its identity and key character becomes ‘lost in transit’? Thinking of Transit Places, the first sites that comes to mind will probably be airports, train stations and motorways. Such places are overall mono-functional with the embedded rationales of people's desires to move (themselves or goods) from one place to another. Often different service functions and commerce are added to such places facilitating the accomplishment of comfortable and easy transit. Apart from those being in transit, people do not visit these places and apart from those working at such transit places, people do not stay for longer periods. Certainly people do not live or spend the whole of their daily lives here. This is on the contrary what many people do in cities and towns - places where people live, work and stay, and that they purposefully visit in their spare times. The article addresses what happens, when an inhabited place obtain the properties normally connected with transit. The article explores a particular place in Denmark that is heavily influenced by transit, namely the town Hirtshals situated in the northern part of Jutland. The purpose is to gain knowledge about how such place and transit mobility influence each other. The article analyzes the case as a critical point of contact (Jensen & Morelli 2011) between four influential layers: History, Flow, Materiality and Meaning. The analysis shows an unbalance between the layers which negatively influence the functionality and experience of the place. Through an empirical and ethnography exploration this paper seeks to expose how a town primarily characterized by ferry transit is being challenged on its capacity to be a 'place' of meaning and social importance to its inhabitants. The paper raises the key question: Can a place become too well connected and this in such a manner that its identity and key character becomes 'lost in transit'?

Udkantsdanmark er i den offentlige debat ofte italesat som havende for dårlig tilgængelighed og set som mobilitetsfattig. Forbedret og øget infrastruktur er således ofte taget op som løsningen for disse områder. Denne artikel argumenterer imod denne begrænsede forståelse af problemer relateret til udkantsområder. Artiklen viser konkret gennem et casestudie af Hirtshals, baseret på en til formålet udviklet ’mobil metode’ samt studier af byplaner og luftfotos, hvordan dette byområde influeres af en stor mængde fysiske mobiliteter, såsom turister, forretningsrejsende, gods og offshore-industri, en national motorvej, en togrute og færgeforbindelser til en række nordiske lande. Dog oplever byen en række negative byudviklingstendenser hvilket påvirker byen Hirtshals som et oplevet og levet sted. Artiklen argumenterer derfor teoretisk på baggrund af casestudiet for nødvendigheden af at fysiske mobiliteter og sted i højere grad må forstås i sammenhæng som gensidigt afhængige. Det betyder konkret i forhold til den analyserede case, at sted og fysiske mobiliteter ikke blot skal udspille sig som to forskellige stedslige logikker og materialiteter, men i højere grad bør sammentænkes således, at de levede steder og mobilitetsstrømmene påvirker og udvikler hinanden i den fremtidige byudviklingsproces. Der synes at være et uforløst arkitektonisk mobilitetspotentiale gemt i planlægningen af Hirtshals., Selected Proceedings from the Annual Transport Conference at Aalborg University, Årg. 8 Nr. 1 (2013): Selected Proceedings from the Annual Transport Conference at Aalborg University

”Skaber mobilitet lokal værdi? ” er det spørgsmål som denne artikel vil udfolde. Gennem studier foretaget af rejsende igennem Hirtshals Havn ønsker artiklen at belyse den gennemrejsendes syn på Hirtshals som henholdsvis transitsted og som by. Hirtshals er et transitknudepunkt, hvor motorvejen kiler sig ind mellem by og havn for at ende direkte i færgeterminalerne til Norge, Island og Færøerne. Men opnår den gennemrejsende en stedstilknytning til Hirtshals som en destination på rejsen, eller drukner byen i effektiv infrastruktur? Tesen er, at der ligger et skjult udviklingspotentiale i at samtænke sted og mobilitet, hvilket i Hirtshals tilfælde vil sige samtænke by og havn!

With this paper the author shows through a case study of the harbour town Hirtshals, Denmark, how the same place is being perceived and (e)valuated very differently concerning scale-dependent points of view. Based primarily on interviews and document analysis it is revealed how local citizens in the case of Hirtshals appreciate a strong community as well as physical vicinity and easy access to nature and their surrounding landscapes, whereas politicians, businesses and other stakeholders operating on a municipal, regional or national level often asses the same place more as a strategic node in a global network. Thus, the chapter concerns the consequences of investments and priorities made on bigger scales to the local environment. The author questions the correlation between global mobility and local places and asks for whom value is created; thus touching upon power structures and changes in the balance of power over time. It is argued, that a greater awareness on the differences is key in the professional planning of places, and that it is important to identify and work with potentials of both mobility and place specific concerns to develop such places in a viable way and to assure, that the global flows works for instead of against the local place.

Dette er historien om Hirtshals, der over en lang periode er vokset i takt med sin havn. De senereårtier har byen dog oplevet kraftig befolkningstilbagegang og fysisk forfald, skønt havnen fortsater i vækst. Kommunens byplanlæggere arbejder nu med strategisk byudvikling, for at imødegå udfordringerne.

International audience

International audience

International audience; A first qualitative methodology called commented walks (Thibaud, 2001) is used by urban planners to study the quality of the environment and urban experience using photos or videos. A second one, called obstacle course (Chevrier and Juguet, 2003), is used by anthropologists to highlight the difficulties encountered by people traveling on untested paths using scenarios. For six years, our research has mixed these two methods in order to study the orientation strategies of people moving in the urban environment. The videos resulting from our commented obstacle course methodology are relevant to point out several dysfunctions coming from transport networks.

International audience; The observation, analysis and construction of cities and forms of mobility are not always in step with the complexity of urban systems and changes in contemporary societies. It is possible to use time as a key to reading the functioning and dysfunctions of cities and as a springboard for new mobilitiesand sustainable urban development policies. This "chronotopic" perspective makes it possible to approach the complexity of urban systems and reflect on ways of "indwelling" times and mobilities. The researcher, the urban planner, the builder and the citizen are invited to change their outlooks, to think, design and manage the city by simultaneously taking into account urban physicality, flows and timetables in order to imagine, together a "malleable city", a more human, accessible and hospitable one.