Mallorca and its metropolitan dynamics: proximity and daily mobility in a city-island

Abstract

Proximity trips are the ideal kind of trips to reduce private vehicle mobility, and promote social equity and environmental sustainability in urban centers. These kinds of trips are more characteristic of traditional, compact and complex cities, but have been replaced by long distance trips due to the development of urban sprawl in the recent decades. Mallorca Island has not been exempt to this dynamic, as it has established itself as a metropolitan space in which traditional urban cores coexist with scattered new residential spaces. In this context, movements of proximity are analyzed and classified, based on a cluster analysis according to socio-demographic profiles, modes and motives of journey. The results suggest that socioeconomic, equity and gender aspects are key issues to understanding daily proximity trips.