Welcome to the third part of this reflection we are having together, concerned with alternative mobility imaginaries and the role that's low mobility can have in constructing such imaginary. The problem I would like to raise in this part and then trying to create the outlines of an answer is concerned with instrumentalism. As we saw before, in order to people feel happy to leave their lattice tool in a small geographical area, it will be needed that people experience a strong sense of engagement. Almost the passion and love for that area or for its people. But that is something that we cannot induce at will. It seems that the entire idea of localism is hanging on a very thin shrink, which is that of resonance with local areas cannot be induced. It seems then that is impossible to create, establish the span of life localism, and that the only way of doing it will be through some strange form of instrumentalism image by means of extremely advanced social engineering, will be able to make people to feel connected. That seems however deep weird. How could we do them? How could we approach this conundrum, because there is clearly a predicament here. First of all, I like to say that I'm not going to talk about a number of things that you probably we're expecting. Namely, the precise policies and initiatives that planners and policy makers should consider to implement in order to promote localism. Whatever they might be from promoting active forms of mobility or certain types of urban morphologies or opening gardening or some cute romantic form of whatever that people would feel that these making it tolerable that they believe their lives in global building and I didn't want to go there. The reason for that is example and each area will have very different characteristics and therefore, I don't believe that one can talk about as type of policy or initiative that could actually believer goals of these nature. Instead, I think we need to look somewhere else. To start by what we already know, which is immortility, that is low mobility, proximity, and engagement with a local area as a form of individual and collective capital. Immotility presupposes resonance, you need to feel deeply connected in relationship with something that exists in that local area. Examples of that could be the natural environment, made you feel something special about whatever are the geographical and physical features of that place or with the city or the urban environment itself. Some people love cities like New York or London or Amsterdam or Lisbon they just love them and so they are happy to stay there, even if the city doesn't treat them very well, they love the city. Other possibilities is the work you do, or your hobbies or your sports, some people you see sleeping by the sea side because they love surfing. Other people who insists living in mountainous areas because they love rock climbing, and that is something that makes them want to stay. Of course, at last but not the least, people can choose to stay in a given area and be happy there, even when many things are failing, because they have their very deep social, family, romantic relationships. Even at work some people really love the work environment, and that creates these resonance. That makes them want to stay. There are number of possibilities, but they all have one thing in common. Even though we can create conditions that facilitate the emergence of resonance, that sense of deep connection, we cannot guarantee that resonance will happen local, neither we can guarantee that it will be maintained. How can we then, if we cannot promote at will emergence and maintenance of resonance, and if immortality depends fundamentally on it, and if localism is dependent on both of them, how can we promote localism in a way that is successful and leads to well-being. In fact, there is a very complicated matter in place, which is that we tend in public policy, in transport planning, in urban planning to think in a very instrumental way. The reality is that instrumentalism is something very sad. That is probably one of the reasons why people always had and will have that love-hate relationship with planners. Consider this example. If you have people in love, making love by simply really liking each other, that is considered one of the most beautiful things that human beings can experience in the vast majority of contemporary societies. But if we convert that into something that is into state will as a surface, as a mechanism to achieve certain goals we call that prostitution. The reality is that contemporary societies also don't see prostitution in a very favorable way. They might tolerate it, but the reality is that it's not something that people do use and is considered particularly prestigious. Other societies in the past didn't have different relationships with the notion of love and with the notion of prostitution, but this is what we have today. Love is considered a beautiful thing, and prostitution is not considered a beautiful thing. What separates the two is the instrumental quality of the second, is the as well, the involvement money in the process. Now let's see what's happening. The dominant logic we have today in planning, in public policy in politics in general, well, in so many things, is fundamentally bias and the notion of incrementalism. We find means to control things, everything and everywhere and anytime. We love control. We love to instrumentalize whatever we can for our benefit. Furthermore, we're living also in a time in which managerialism is widespread, is almost the now. Managerialism basically means that everything we approach becomes a project. Something that has a beginning, a middle, and an end and is suppose to deliver certain amount of outcomes which would be aligned with certain goals, which we measure using performance indicators, and then we select the strategy that should allow us to shift those outcomes which are supposed to be aligned with the goals, and frequently, of course, we relate these very directly with money. Value for money, cost-benefit. This is the mentality that we have today. As you know, transport planning uses cost-benefit analysis and other forms of econometric assessment all over the place to determine what is the best choice, what is the best initiative, what is the best policy. So it's considered completely natural that we have a relationship with our world, with our societies, with the things we do. That in a scary way resembles prosecution with bifurcate to achieve that desired goal. Then in the form of strange climax, we say, “Look, I achieved it.” To me, this doesn't seem great and indeed, and that's my point. At the core of what makes this not so pretty is this instrumentalists relationship we started to develop with everything. I hope that now you understand better why I was not interested in these last part to talk about the specific policies, or the specific initiatives, or morphologies, or whatever that we should implement to achieve localism. Because thinking in that way it might be part of the problem. What about if we start to think about this from a completely different angle that which is concerned with the way we look into the world. Preferably that is what would be truly revolutionary. What about if we choose to stop? Therefore, that's why I find the idea of localism so interesting. Just stop for a moment. Reduce your tempo. Take a moment to reflect, to contemplate the world around you. Instead of trying to change the world and manipulate it so that it delivers to you what you want to achieve. What about if you just stop and see what the world is saying? If you try to grasp what the world wants, maybe the place around you will have a very powerful message to you. My impression when I do this myself, when I stop this crazy struggle and this ration attempt to remain competitive that characterize contemporary societies and all that. When I stop, and I listen, and I pay attention, typically, what I see the world around me saying is, ''I want less movement, and I want less transformation of raw materials, and I want less consumption, I want less crazy stuff, I want less destruction of ecosystems, I want humans to stop for a moment and to contemplate and to realize that humans are part of this natural environment. Humans are the strain this natural environment, and they are the strangler for humanity itself.'' From these different starting point, which is not on what I'm trying to achieve. But instead of what is the world around me coping that we will do. We can change this logic of instrumentalization of everything and instead start the different logic, the logic of connection, a logic of interaction, is almost like experiment to dance with the world, to see what is the written with its that is defining its activities or the activities that the world would like to have going. As I told you, my deep impression is that the world is trying to reduce our tempo, is trying to reduce some mobility, is trying to reduce our consumption, and is trying to reduce out destruction of natural environments. What does this mean then, in terms of alternative mobility imaginaries? I think it really means that it's time to, perhaps, understand imagination less like projection. Project less what you want in your tension, in your struggles into the world. Instead of allow the world to with its wisdom, to let it understand what should be done. That is a different form of imagination, not based on projection, but based on listening, on understanding, on resonance, on awareness of what's going on and what is the natural way. What about mobility itself? I don't know, it can mean all things. But I do think that it means less mobility. Then we completely go for a new campaign of trying to kill mobility? No. It's also not that, it's that is just pay attention. Each place, it's circumstance could bear a different message. Our role I think is to listen to it. You setups trying to constantly impose our obsession with economic growth is more jobs with the remaining competitive with all these things. It's very difficult because there are many people who don't have enough money, don't have jobs. The question is whether continuity is accelerated written, is neurotic pace is going to solve this? Social exclusion, poverty, etc, poor health. I really don't feel it is. I think nobody thinks that. But not deep at the soul level. But nobody is listening to our souls anymore. Because we have this strong ideology of growth, of acceleration going on. I hope that this has inspired you in some way. I hope that this in some way will help you to look at the world differently. I apologize for my arrogance because what I'm saying is obviously arrogant in a number of ways as if I knew best what should be done. I apologize for this arrogance. Please see it just as my sharing, my reflections, my insight at the moment on this topic. I wish you all the best and stay well.
