The Politics of Mobility in the South: A Commentary on Sprawl, Automobility, and the Gulf Oil Spill

During the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico there were discourses that urged a reduction in America’s oil dependency by reducing driving. Yet in the South proposals to limit drilling, conservation, and especially reduced driving, were met with hostility. These countervailing discourses provide a snapshot into a broader “ politics of mobility,” in the South—struggles over fundamental beliefs and normative values about what type of transportation is appropriate, who should decide transportation policy, and where movement should or should not occur. This article reviews some trends and themes worth considering for a potential research agenda on the politics of mobility in the South, including an overview of the South’s high rates of automobile use and sprawl and the politics surrounding this. Examining the politics of mobility can offer Southern scholars innovative and thought-provoking insights into these debates and how landscapes of the South are produced.