The geographical dimension of daily active mobility
Abstract
Active mobility represents a particularly interesting lever for combating physical inactivity and its associated health problems, insofar as it is an important component of physical activity and can be practiced routinely and on a daily basis. This chapter is devoted to the question of context effects and their role in producing territorial heterogeneity, as observed via active mobility. It presents urban experimentation evaluation studies in different territorial contexts around the world. Encouraging active mobility in daily life requires studying its determinants, in particular those related to the environment, since they are potentially modifiable by urban planners at the local level. The chapter concludes with the challenges represented by development strategies on active mobility, and more broadly, on health and socio-spatial health inequalities. A lever for modifying health-related mobility behaviors – active modes – could involve acting on the living contexts of populations, and more particularly, modifying urban characteristics.