Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Streetscapes in Transitions: design, wellbeing and mobility

Urban transitions are central to contemporary debates on climate-resilient, healthy, and inclusive cities. Streetscapes and public spaces in general play a critical role in shaping walkability, liveability, and everyday urban experience, influencing how people move, perceive, and interact with the city. Beyond their functional role, they are social, cultural, sensory, and political spaces that reflect broader dynamics of environmental justice, accessibility, and quality of urban life. As cities respond to climate imperatives, streets and public spaces increasingly become sites where mobility transitions are tested, negotiated, and contested, functioning as laboratories for design innovation, planning, governance, and everyday adaptation. However, long-standing car-centred planning continues to constrain social interaction and independent mobility, disproportionately affecting vulnerable groups such as children, older adults, and people with disabilities. Addressing these challenges requires interdisciplinary perspectives that connect spatial design, mobility systems, behavioural change, and socio-cultural processes. This Research Topic invites contributions that advance empirical, theoretical, and methodological understanding of how transformations in streetscape and public space can support sustainable, liveable, and regenerative urban environments.The goal of this Research Topic is to advance interdisciplinary understanding of how streetscapes and public spaces mediate urban mobility transitions and how these transformations influence wellbeing, equity, and everyday urban experience. While significant progress has been made in promoting sustainable transport systems, less attention has been given to how mobility transitions are embedded in the lived, sensory, and social dimensions of streets and public spaces in general. This collection seeks to address this gap by bringing together research that examines these spaces as dynamic environments where mobility practices, spatial design, governance frameworks, and socio-cultural processes intersect. By integrating perspectives from urban planning, architecture, design, mobility studies, behavioural sciences, public health, and the social sciences and humanities, the Research Topic aims to generate knowledge that supports the development of liveable, inclusive, and health-promoting environments. Contributions are expected to provide empirical evidence, conceptual insights, or methodological innovations that inform both research and practice, supporting cities in navigating mobility transitions while enhancing quality of life and social justice in everyday urban environments.This Research Topic welcomes original contributions that explore streetscapes and public spaces, with a focus on design, mobility, wellbeing, behaviour, and governance. Relevant themes include, but are not limited to, perceptions of walkability, safety, comfort, and accessibility; social and sensory dimensions of street experience; mobility cultures and behavioural change; health-promoting and nature-based street design; participatory and community-led street transformations; and policy, governance, and evaluation frameworks addressing equity and justice in mobility transitions. We encourage submissions employing diverse methodological approaches, including spatial and mobility analysis, qualitative and participatory methods, mixed and experimental designs, arts-based and design research, and policy-oriented studies. The Research Topic welcomes Original Research articles, Reviews, Systematic Reviews, Policy and Practice Reviews, Perspectives, Brief Research Reports, and Community Case Studies that contribute to advancing sustainable, liveable, and just urban streetscapes and public spaces. Topic editors: Catarina Cadima, Kinga Racoń-Leja, Jelena Ristić Trajković Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/78771/interdisciplinary-perspectives-on-streetscapes-in-transitions-design-wellbeing-and-mobility