Restricted Mobilities: Access to, and Activities in Public and Private Spaces

Privatisation of public spaces in the contemporary city has increased during the last decades but only few studies have approached this field from a mobility perspective. Therefore the article seeks to rectify this by exploring two Australian examples of private spaces in the city; gated communities and shopping centres through mobility lenses. The article shows how different mobility systems enable and restrict the public access to private-public spaces, and it points out that proprietary communities create an unequal potential for human movement and access in the city. The main argument in the article is that the many mobility systems enable specialization of places that are targeted at a special section of the population. This means that various forms of motilities not only create new opportunities for urban life but it is also one of the most critical components of production of new exclusion and stratification mechanisms. In conclusion the article therefore suggests that future urban research and planning also needs a mobile understanding of spaces in the cities and how different mobility systems play an important role to sustain the exclusiveness that often characterises the private/public spaces. Likewise, from a mobility perspective, the specific consequences that the proprietary communities have on the surrounding communities seem to be an important further question for research and planning.