The web of urban life: mobility in Maceió under the light of thesystems thinking
Sustainable Urban Mobility Index, Maceió-AL, mobility,systems thinking
Inspired by nature's way of operating and the form of organization in networks, common to all systems, cities need to be interpreted, planned and managed having as a fundamental principle the preservation and enhancement of life: a rare phenomenon in the universe. What collides with contemporary urban reality risk of environmental collapse, intense inequality and low quality of life, with strong weakening of health due to traffic accidents, stress and pollution, especially in the developing world. Humanity lives a key moment to change the course of its history and the city is the ideal environment for this. In this context, this research proposes to explore the epistemological panorama of the system and its relations with the world we live in, the cities that we build and the global problems and perspectives in an urban context, with a focus on on the topic of mobility and having as object of study the city of Maceió-AL (Brazil). It was chosen as a methodological tool the calculation and mapping of the Sustainable Urban Mobility (IMUS) of the city, whose results indicate that the mobility in Maceió presents several problems with causes and consequences capillaries and systemic structure. The lack of integration in municipal management and bad indicators, such as those related to the quality of transport modes collective and active, indicate the need for changes in the way people understand urban dynamics and municipal planning and management policy. From the assembled panorama and the synthesis of references of application of principles systems in urban development, an evaluation and suggestion of improvements to the IMUS, as well as development guidelines were created to the city of Maceió, which may be applicable to other similar contexts, glimpsing, in the face of the great human capacity to collaborate, the potential of small local transformations that, cumulatively, can result in large global transformations.