Youth and Urban mobility

Personal, family and external aspects weaving the daily lives of young students around a medium-sized city

Abstract

Concerns about movement and transportation and spatial relations of im/mobility among university students stand out in a scenario of often disorderly growth in Brazilian cities. This study seeks to analyze the ways in which university students organize their journeys around their studies and describe the personal, family and external factors that interfere with their mobility, in addition to identifying the different degrees of access they have to means of transport and circulation. Questionnaires were applied to young people between 18 and 25 years old enrolled in universities and colleges in Caruaru (PE) and the data was analyzed with Vasconcellos’ (2012) framework. Income, cost, travel time, commuting, quality, accessibility and, in particular, safety are described and strongly influence decision-making related to the mobility of young people, with the technological dimension playing an increasingly important role in this sphere. The smartphone is pointed out as a key element in the physical-virtual space interface, both to guide movement and to support the academic training process. This study contributes by suggesting the expansion of analytical efforts in the sense of recognizing and harboring an assessment of the urban mobility of young people also based on technological dimensions.