Urban structures and daily mobility patterns in a city of long distances—the case of Muscat/Oman Maike Didero, 1 Sonja Nebel 2 and Carmella Pfaffenbach 1 1 Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen University, Germany 2 Technische Universität Berlin, Germany Correspondence: Carmella Pfaffenbach (email: pfaffenbach@geo.rwth-aachen.de) Population growth, urban sprawl and a high degree of car dependency as well as slowly rising pet- rol prices contribute towards increasing challenges for everyday urban mobility in Muscat, Oman. Until now, only a few empirical studies have dealt with urban mobility in Oman. Therefore, this article draws mainly on our own empirical findings to answer the following questions: What do daily and weekly mobility patterns look like in Muscat? How do these practices differ depending on the social position of the household, i.e. their nationality, income and education? Which interdependent effects can be discerned between everyday mobility practices and the fragmented and segregated urban structures? Since our research questions focus on the interrelations between urban structures and individual mobility, we chose a mixed-methods approach including methods derived both from social and spatial research. This article in particular draws on our quantitative survey covering 850 households and extensive mappings of three selected case study areas and secondary data analysis. Accepted: 22 March 2019 Introduction: The car dependent city of Muscat In view of future challenges like climate change and oil depletion, there is a mounting consensus that the transport sector—which is currently responsible for 13 per cent of Greenhouse Gas emissions worldwide—has to adapt (Cervero, 2014: 175). In an urban context, which this paper is concerned with, the quest for more sustainable urban mobility is closely linked to debates about city structures and land-use planning (cf. e.g. Banister, 2012; Ewing & Hamidi, 2015). In the large amount of literature on the interrelation of urban car-based mobility (usually measured as vehicle miles of travel per inhabitant) and urban structures, the factor density, diversity, design, destination accessibility and distance to transit have been taken into consideration (Ewing & Hamidi, 2015). While the relationship between population density and vehicle miles travelled is not a directly linear one (Vilhelmson, 2005), there is substantial evidence that low population densities (as a consequence of urban sprawl), job dispersion and a low priority given to public transport generate ‘cities of long distances’ and a high degree of car dependency (cf. e.g. Obeng-Odoom, 2015). Many urban planners are thus convinced that urban sprawl and car dependency have to be reduced if the current aim of achieving more sustainable, cleaner and more socially just cities of the future is to be realized (Cervero, 2014: 175). Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography (2019) © 2019 Department of Geography, National University of Singapore and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd doi:10.1111/sjtg.12285