Individual well-being beyond mobility growth?

In contemporary modern societies economic growth is strongly correlated with mobility growth, and mobility growth is strongly correlated with unsustainable environmental and social impacts. The sustainable mobility approach has attempted to weaken both these links by trying on one side to make economic growth less dependent on mobility growth, and on the other side to make mobility less environmentally and socially harmful. However, and despite 30 years of efforts, the success of this balancing act has been at best mixed and is plainly insufficient. This chapter argues that it is time to try an altogether different approach, and question instead the link between mobility growth and human welfare and well-being. The chapter sees the current pandemic as triggering a unique natural experiment allowing this exploration and asks what insights it might give about a world where increases of individual well-being are independent of mobility growth.