scholarly journals Everyday governance and urban environments: Towards a more interdisciplinary urban political ecology

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. e12310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natasha Lee Cornea ◽  
René Véron ◽  
Anna Zimmer
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Urban Political Ecology

Urban political ecology II

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (6) ◽  
pp. 839-845 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nik Heynen
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Uneven Development ◽  
White Supremacist ◽  
Urban Political Ecology ◽  
Metropolitan Growth ◽  
The Press ◽  
Indigenous Theory ◽  
Indigenous Perspectives

Attention to the urban and metropolitan growth of nature can no longer be denied. Nor can the intense scrutiny of racialized, postcolonial and indigenous perspectives on the press and pulse of uneven development across the planet’s urban political ecology be deferred any longer. There is sufficient research ranging across antiracist and postcolonial perspectives to constitute a need to discuss what is referred to here as ‘abolition ecology’. Abolition ecology represents an approach to studying urban natures more informed by antiracist, postcolonial and indigenous theory. The goal of abolition ecology is to elucidate and extrapolate the interconnected white supremacist and racialized processes that lead to uneven develop within urban environments.

Green Urban Political Ecologies: Toward a Better Understanding of Inner-City Environmental Change

2006 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 499-516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nik Heynen
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Inner City ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Forest Canopy ◽  
Urban Forest ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Canopy Cover ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Urban Political Ecology ◽  
The Usa

This research uses a Marxist urban political ecology framework to link processes of urban environmental metabolization explicitly to the consumption fund of the built environment. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I argue in this paper that Marxist notions of metabolism are ideal for investigating urban environmental change and the production of uneven urban environments. In so doing, I argue that despite the embeddedness of Harvey's circuits of capital within urban political economy, these connected notions still have a great deal to offer regarding better understanding relations between consumption and metabolization of urban environments. From this theoretical perspective, I investigate urban socionatural metabolization as a function of the broader socioeconomic processes related to urban restructuring within the USA between 1962 and 1993 in the Indianapolis inner-city urban forest. The research examines the relations between changes in household income and changes in urban forest canopy cover. The results of the research indicate that there was a significant decline over time in the Indianapolis urban forest canopy and that median household was related to these changes, thus demonstrating a concrete example of urban environmental metabolization.

scholarly journals Book review: Urban environments in Africa - A critical analysis of environmental politics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Urban Political Ecology ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Sub Saharan

By 2030, the fastest rates of population growth and urbanisation will be witnessed in sub-Saharan Africa, followed by India and parts of Southeast Asia (Nagendra et al., 2018). Academic literature (Shoffner et al., 2018) as well as policy documents (UNDP, 2018) have been acknowledging that urbanisation is a global phenomenon with strong environmental sustainability implications and cities have become central to ensuring a sustainable future (Acuto et al., 2018). In ‘Urban Environments in Africa’, Garth Myers deconstructs the criticisms of urban political ecology (UPE) and investigates African environmentalism from different ontological and epistemological points of view.

Urban commons to private property: Gendered environments in Mumbai’s fisher communities

2020 ◽  
pp. 026377582096140
Author(s):  
Aparna Parikh
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Resource Availability ◽  
Service Sector ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Urban Political Ecology ◽  
Everyday Activities ◽  
Urban Commons ◽  
Land Water

The enclosure of urban ecological commons into private property has facilitated the growth of the neoliberal service sector in Mumbai, India. These changes are brought forth through a reworking of communally managed land into narrowly understood public space, which has paved the way for private development. At the helm of Mumbai’s urbanization is a power alliance between state and elite non-state actors across colonial and neoliberal regimes. The process has gravely impacted subsistence and livelihood activities of fisher communities residing in proximity to the development, disproportionately affecting fisherwomen. This paper centers fisherwomen’s urban worlds to analyze the uneven legibility of existing spatial patterns. Across various scales, the categorical and material reworking of land–water commons has reduced resource availability. Women bear a greater, although underrecognized, burden in maintaining lives and livelihoods within this changing landscape. The relative illegibility of fisherwomen’s spaces, however, allows some everyday activities to continue unnoticed despite ongoing processes of enclosure. My analysis of the enclosure of urban ecological commons and its gendered dimensions advances a dialogue between intersectional feminist and urban political ecology on colonial–neoliberal continuities, categorical exclusions in public–private binaries, and gendered urban environments.

Beyond tabulated utopias: Action and contradiction in urban environments

Urban Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (11) ◽  
pp. 2371-2379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanesa Castán Broto
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Substantial Contribution ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Urban Political Ecology ◽  
Policy Regime ◽  
Crystal Palace ◽  
Sustainable Urbanism ◽  
Utopian Thinking ◽  
The Impact

In this commentary I reflect upon the possibilities for action to deliver sustainable and just urban environments. I depart from the questions that inspire this special issue: what is it about cities that enables them to make a substantial contribution to environmental dilemmas? And how did cities become the darling trope of the international environmental policy regime? I use the metaphor of ‘the Crystal Palace’ to situate proposals for sustainable urbanism in a spectrum of options between naïve idealism and full-fledged cynicism. I argue that between those two extremes there are multiple alternatives to advance sustainable futures. Urban political ecology (UPE) is in a privileged position to reveal the contradictions inherent in the current incarnation of sustainable urbanism. That is why UPE scholars cannot miss the opportunity to produce context-relevant research to change urban sustainability policies and beliefs. In the second part of this commentary, I explore a case study already presented elsewhere in the special issue. The case of the successive unsuccessful projects for Olympic candidacy in Jaca (Spain) shows the impact of a series of speculative design exercises to build a technocratic eco-city. However, Jaca’s Olympic dreams have historical and cultural roots in the town. Its inhabitants have both propelled and contested the Olympic project at different moments over the evolution of the project. Progressive forms of environmentalism also emerge from the encounter between urban history and utopian thinking.

scholarly journals Theorizing Public Participation and Local Governance in Urban Resilience: Reflections on the “Provincializing Urban Political Ecology” Thesis

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 10307
Author(s):  
Chihsin Chiu
Keyword(s):  
Public Participation ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Urban Resilience ◽  
Urban Political Ecology ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Corporate Elites

Urban political ecology (UPE) infuses Marxism with poststructuralism and constructivism to explore the dialectic relationship between nature and society in urban environments as well as the economic aspect of an urban socioecological system. Nevertheless, the literature on southern urbanism has urged UPE to become more “provincialized” to reflect the diffuse forms of power and everyday governance influencing the planning of cities in the Global South. This article reviews and reflects on this wave of debates raised by critics who have positioned postcolonial thinking as an alternative to Marxist political economy, in which UPE is rooted. It also identifies those works that might help provincialize UPE differently. Without rejecting the Marxism, another set of approaches draws influence from the strategic-relational approach (SRA) to examine environmental issues in ways that destabilize conventionally economic determinist UPE. In addition to involving corporate elites and city officials, a UPE framework incorporating the SRA is capable of bringing the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community leaders, and environmentalists in everyday governance to the front. The article contends that the latter framework adds weight on public participation and local governance in different geopolitical contexts without losing sight of the social inequalities caused by state-led or privatized programs in the quest for urban resilience.

scholarly journals Who defines 'whole': an urban political ecology of flood control and community relocation in Houston, Texas

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 951 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin A. Lynn
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Flood Control ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Public Agencies ◽  
Urban Political Ecology ◽  
Potential Health ◽  
Public Agency ◽  
The Us ◽  
Flood Control Infrastructure

Abstract Even if public agencies sponsoring projects like flood alleviation have the best of intentions for relocated households, there may still be residents who do not agree with being forced to move. Federal relocation policy in the US has been, and continues to be, concerned primarily with housing economics and financial compensation. And yet, residents subject to relocation continue to express other concerns. The public agency responsible for relocation from flood-prone Kashmere Gardens in Houston, TX has promised to make households 'whole' in terms of finding new housing that is no more expensive (in terms of rent, mortgage payments, and equity) than vacated homes. While these considerations are important, this article illustrates how public agencies need to expand how they define 'whole.' Interviews with 53 households affected directly or indirectly by relocation show that the following factors need consideration when subjecting households to involuntary relocation: (1) suitability of new housing, (2) perceived competence of relocation specialists, (3) the relocation planning process, and (4) potential health issues for relocated households. Key Words: Kashmere Gardens, Houston, Uniform Relocation Act (URA), flood control infrastructure, urban political ecology

Obstinate curiosity and situated solidarity in urban political ecology

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Goldfischer ◽  
Jennifer L. Rice ◽  
Sara T. Black
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Urban Political Ecology
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