Three Cities, Three Realities: Why Paris, Guildford and Salzburg?
What happens when young people are given a stronger voice in shaping the way their cities move?
To find out, i-mobyl is working with young adolescents, between 11-15 years old, in three very different European cities: Paris, Guildford and Salzburg.
At first glance, the three places could hardly seem more different. Paris is a global metropolis with ambitious policies for cycling and child-friendly streets. Guildford is a smaller, peri-urban town where everyday mobility is still strongly shaped by the car. Salzburg lies somewhere in between – a compact city with strong potential for active mobility and, at the same time, an important window for influencing current urban mobility policy.
This diversity is not a coincidence. It is at the heart of the Living Lab approach.
The three cities were deliberately selected to represent different urban scales, mobility cultures and social contexts. This allows i-mobyl to explore not only what young people need, but also how solutions work under very different local conditions – and what can be transferred from one city to another.
Paris
Learning from a city already in transition.
With more than two million inhabitants, the city is already undergoing a profound transformation of its streets and public spaces. Walking and cycling play an important role in everyday mobility, while policies such as the “Rue aux écoles” programme have transformed streets around schools and the city has invested heavily in cycling infrastructure.
So why is Paris a Living Lab for i-mobyl if so much is already happening?
Because ambitious policy does not automatically mean that every young person experiences the city in the same way.
Paris is characterised by strong socio-spatial diversity. Different neighbourhoods offer very different environments, opportunities and mobility conditions. This makes the city an important setting for exploring how young adolescents experience existing mobility policies – and whether these policies actually match their needs and everyday lives.
The local partner CAUE de Paris brings extensive experience in working with schools and young people on urban issues. This provides an established basis for involving adolescents directly in workshops and participatory activities.
Paris therefore gives i-mobyl the opportunity to ask:
How can young people’s perspectives improve policies that are already changing the city?
Guildford
Tackling mobility where the car still dominates.
Guildford offers a very different starting point.
The medium-sized, peri-urban town has a strong level of car dependency, making it an important context for understanding what prevents young people from choosing active and multimodal forms of transport.
The Living Lab focuses particularly on north-west Guildford, where social and health inequalities add another dimension to mobility. According to the project proposal, around one in three households in the area experiences socio-economic or health deprivation.
There is also a clear gender dimension. In the UK, girls are less likely than boys to cycle, making Guildford an interesting place to explore how gender, perceptions and the local environment influence young people’s mobility choices.
Here, the question is less about improving an already ambitious mobility transformation and more about how to create the conditions for change in a car-oriented environment.
Guildford can also learn from the other Living Labs. Approaches developed in Paris or Salzburg – for example around active school travel or community cycling – can be explored for their potential to work in a very different setting.
Guildford therefore asks:
What does it take to make active mobility attractive and realistic when the car is still the easiest option?
Salzburg
A city at a policy turning point.
Salzburg brings yet another perspective.
The city is relatively compact, with many everyday destinations within cycling or walking distance. At the same time, Salzburg continues to face challenges from motorised traffic and congestion. The city has already developed strategies for cycling, walking and climate action and is currently working on a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP).
This creates something particularly valuable for i-mobyl: a policy window.
The project can engage with young people at a moment when future mobility priorities are being shaped – rather than only evaluating policies after they have already been implemented.
Salzburg also has an established network of schools, youth organisations and initiatives that can support participation and help reach young people from different backgrounds. Existing activities such as Bike to School provide another starting point for connecting the project with everyday mobility experiences.
For Salzburg, the Living Lab is therefore an opportunity to bring a perspective that is often missing from strategic planning directly into the process: the perspective of those who will live with the decisions made today.
Salzburg therefore asks:
What changes when young people become part of shaping a city’s mobility future – while that future is still being designed?
Three cities – one bigger experiment
The real strength of the three Living Labs lies in their combination.
Paris, Guildford and Salzburg are not intended to become three isolated case studies. Together, they create three different testing grounds for understanding youth mobility:
Paris shows what can be learned in a large city already investing heavily in active and child-friendly mobility.
Guildford highlights the challenges of changing mobility behaviour in a car-dependent, peri-urban environment.
Salzburg offers the perspective of a compact city where major mobility strategies are currently being shaped.
This diversity makes it possible to look beyond individual interventions and explore a bigger question:
How can mobility solutions designed with young people become relevant across different European cities?
The Living Labs will therefore not simply test whether an intervention works. They will help uncover why it works, for whom, under which conditions – and what might be needed to adapt it elsewhere.
That is what makes the Living Labs an essential part of i-mobyl: different places, different challenges, different opportunities – but a shared goal of making urban mobility work better for young people.
Image credits: Alexander Kagan, Intrepid, Georgi Kalaydzhiev, Unsplash contributors