Neoliberal mobility and its discontents: Working tricycles in China’s cities Glen Norcliffe ⇑ Department of Geography, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3 article info Article history: Received 29 November 2010 Received in revised form date 22 November 2011 Accepted 25 November 2011 Available online 24 December 2011 Keywords: Hypermobility Working tricycle Neoliberalism China’s cities Sustainability Informal sector abstract What kind of civilization are we trying to build? Prior to the neoliberal age Freud considered civilization to be a collective social project with discontent arising when individuals are constrained by society from pursuing their own self-interested goals. Today, with globalization and competitive laissez-faire domi- nant, Stiglitz sees this relationship being reversed with individual self-interest as the norm, and discon- tentment arising when broader societal objectives are pursued. This theme is taken up in the context of working tricycles in China’s cities which serve as the platform for millions of micro-enterprises, but are being squeezed out by automobility. In the neoliberal age there has been a substantial increase in mobil- ity, with some people becoming hypermobile, particularly with excessive automobile use. Working tricy- cles were popular in the West in the late nineteenth century, but in the twentieth century they virtually disappeared. The same trend is evident with China’s carrier tricycles, but a case is made that history should not be allowed to repeat itself because they continue to fill a valuable social need. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Movement is a necessary part of daily life, but for those enamoured with the project of modernity, mobility has be- come a fetish. Thus in the neoliberal age a new version of Baudelaire’s flâneur has appeared, one who engages in excessive movement. The biomechanical term hypermobil- ity is used by Adams (1999) to describe this pattern of ex- treme travel; he argues that while mobility is normally a creative and liberating activity, recent shifts in cultural practices have resulted in people over-exercising that free- dom with negative consequences which increase the risks of contemporary global capitalism (Beck, 1992). Subse- quently, Sivaramakrishnan and Vaccaro (2006, 314) have extended the metaphor to propose that ‘‘ the scale and fre- quency of this interconnectivity” and the resulting hypermo- bility have become the distinguishing feature of post- industrial society. And in their exploration of the ‘‘system of automobility” Sheller and Urry (2000) see the car initiat- ing large numbers of new trips that arise not from eco- nomic or social necessity, but to construct a personal identity. This trend might simply be attributed to technological improvements speeding up movement and lowering the real cost of travel. The very success of some technologies has, however, had the reverse effect due to increased con- gestion, the case of China’s epic 11 day 100 km traffic jam in August 2010 being a case in point. Indeed in some cases automobility has put into question the sustainability of the city in its present form (Lemon, 1996). For certain, the built form of each city favours particular technologies and modes of movement, which both reflects and, in turn, influ- ences diverse cultures of movement. The bicycle networks of Belgium encourage cycling, while the narrow pre-indus- trial streets of Rome promote honking horns in frustration. I will argue, however, that technology and the built-form of the city explain only in part this tendency towards hyper- mobility. A new class of ‘‘world citizens” are establishing their credentials as members of the global elite through excessive travel. In other words I see hypermobility to have both technological and cultural roots. Furness’ (2010) recent book on the politics of automobility explores in depth both the variegated nature of this cultural process and the importance of urban and environmental politics to the form it takes. The development by civil society of new modes of trans- port during the industrial age led the modern city to grow in particular ways. Tramways, streetcars and then electric railways allowed cities to spread in a linear way along rail 1877-9166/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ccs.2011.11.006 ⇑ Tel.: +1 519 396 6552; fax: +1 519 396 5988. E-mail address: gnorclif@yorku.ca City, Culture and Society 2 (2011) 235–242 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect City, Culture and Society journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ccs