"Il nuovo paradigma della mobilità: tra scienze sociali e urbanistica" Atti della XVII Conferenza SIU, l'urbanistica Italiana nel mondo. Prospettive internazionali, contributi e debiti culturali. Maggio 2014. In Planum.The Journal of Urbanism Planum Publisher, Roma e Milano

Mobility can be a very ambiguous subject depending on the point of view of the observer. Kaufmann noticed that "when geographers use the term mobility, it is to signify the idea of movement through space; they are not talking about the same thing as traffic engineers or sociologists, who use it to refer to transportation flows or social change" (Ravalet et alii, forthcoming). Historically social scientists and planners had completely different approach to mobility (Tarrius, 200; Kaufmann 2002 and 2011; Colleoni and Zaicjc, 2003). While sociologists consider mobility as a movement in social space, meaning a change in the role or status of the individual, without taking into account the relation with spatial mobility; geographers, planners or transport engineers refer mainly to people flows, physical accessibility and transport based on static models. In so doing they miss both the temporal dimension and the link between the spatial movement and the complex system of choices that determines it. This paper proposes an interpretation of mobility as a crossing border concept between different disciplines. In particular I will borrow from a sociological approach the idea of reversible practices of mobility to disclose, through the analysis of some case studies, the importance of this concept for urban planners and designers.Using the concept of reversible mobility practices it will be possible, actually, to study the change of the relation between people and territory and highlight new ways of building territorial relation.