Thalia Verkade – författare

“This book will—no question—make you think in new ways. Why have we surrendered our cities to cars? What might it be like to inhabit a space designed for people instead? It’s exciting and hopeful—this we can do!”—Bill McKibben, author of The Flag, The Cross, and the Station WagonAlmost everywhere in the world, streets are designed for travel at the highest speed, giving precedence to the chunkiest vehicles. We take for granted that the streets outside of our homes are designed only for movement from one point to another. But what happens if we radically rethink how we use these public spaces? Could we change our lives for the better?  In Movement: How to Take Back Our Streets and Transform Our Lives, journalist Thalia Verkade and mobility expert (“the cycling professor”) Marco te Brömmelstroet take a three-year shared journey of discovery into the possibilities of our streets. They investigate and question the choices and mechanisms underpinning how these public spaces are designed and look at how they could be different. Verkade and te Brömmelstroet draw inspiration from the Netherlands and look at what other countries are doing, and could do, to diversify how they use their streets and make them safer.  During the pandemic, decision-makers in cities around the world were confronted with the questions of who our streets belong to, how we want to use them, and who gets to decide. Making our communities safer, cleaner, and greener starts with asking these fundamental questions. To truly transform mobility, we need to look far beyond the technical aspects and put people at the center of urban design. Movement will change the way that you view our streets.

We take it for granted that the streets outside out homes are designed for movement from A to B, nothing more. But what happens if we radically rethink how we use these public spaces? Could we change our lives for the better?Our dependence on cars is damaging our health — and the planet’s. The Dutch seem to have the right idea, with thousands of bike highways, but even then, what happens to pedestrians or people who want to cycle at a more leisurely pace? What about children playing outside their homes? Or wildlife, which enriches our local areas? Why do we prioritise traffic above all else?Making our communities safer, cleaner, and greener starts with asking the fundamental questions: who do our streets belong to, what do we use them for, and who gets to decide?Join journalist Thalia Verkade and urban mobility expert Marco te Brömmelstroet as they confront their own underlying beliefs and challenge us to rethink our way of life to put people at the centre of urban design. But be warned: you will never look at the street outside your front door in the same way again.