Metropolitics

How Cities Function Ecologically: The Importance of Urban Soils

2024-04-02T05:00:00Z

What do we know about the diversity of urban soils? Ecologists and soil scientists show that a detailed study of their properties is necessary for more ecologically minded urban planning and development.
The diversity of urban soils
Are you a regional planner or researcher? Urban planner, architect, gardener or soil scientist? The answer to this question will determine how you define and perceive the term “urban soil.” For some, it's any soil located in an urban area (Blanchart et al.

- From the Field / biodiversité, écologie urbaine, nature, écologie, environnement, sols

The Emergence of Ecological Thinking in the City

Charles-François Mathis & translated by Oliver Waine — 2022-09-27T05:00:00Z

What place does ecological thinking have in the field of urban planning? In describing the use of vegetation in cities since the 19th century, Charles-François Mathis examines the historical evolution of planning choices and the foundations of a new “ecological urbanism.”
Wherever I may go today, if the opportunity arises, if I have an hour to spare in an unknown city, a complacent drift takes me along the streets, towards these placid chlorophyllous enclaves encircled nowadays by the

- Essays / landscape, nature, gardens, ecology, parks, urban development, urban planning, environment, history

How to Defend the Planet in Law

Valérie Cabanes & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-04-19T09:26:51Z

In the face of a growing raft of evidence that increasingly points to an imminent global catastrophe—the very self-destruction of humanity, even—one means of taking concrete action, as opposed to fatalism and denial, is to promote new legal frameworks that can structure debate and action on this issue. Valérie Cabanes shows that defining the concept of ecocide is the first key step along this road.
The destruction of the Earth's ecosystem by industrial technologies that show no respect for

- From the Field / international law, environment, global warming, climate change, anthropocène, law, NGOs, ecocide, environmental protection, ecology, nature, mobilization

Nature's Worth: Using Human Markets to Value Ecosystems' Contributions

Anna Krol & Lisa Jean Moore — 2018-02-20T06:00:00Z

Mattijs van Maasakkers' The Creation of Markets for Ecosystem Services in the United States: The Challenge of Trading Places pulls readers into the complex relationship between environment and economy. In this multi-sited ethnography, Van Maasakkers hones in on three large-scale US conservation and restoration projects, exposing gaps in market-based approaches and the ultimate failure of the financialization of nature.
How is the value of an ecological site measured? By the numbers? The 1.35

- Reviews / environment, nature, ethnography, ecosystems, financialization, markets, ecosystem services

Birdwatching in the City: A Case for Multispecies Tourism

Elizabeth Cherry & August Davidson-Onsgard & Lisa Jean Moore — 2018-01-16T06:00:00Z

This essay analyzes the growth of urban avitourism—wildlife tourism focused on birds—as an activity that drives humans and revenue to urban centers. Two sociologists and a birder/wildlife photographer consider the implications of heightened human awareness of nature in cities.
Birds as urban celebrities
In early December of 2015, a painted bunting was sighted in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. Birders from all over the New York metropolitan area learned of the bird's arrival through their “rare

- Essays / parks, nature, New York, tourism, wildlife, urban tourism, avitourism, urban wildlife, migratory birds, bird habitats, birds, birding, birdwatching, wildlife tourism, ecotourism, urban parks

The Violence of Sustainable Urbanity

Erik Swyngedouw — 2014-11-10T05:50:00Z

If Nature is an ideological construction that separates us from the environment, the contemporary search for technical solutions is only business as usual. How then can we face the environmental disasters that human consumption and pollution bring upon us? Erik Swyngedouw advocates for a politization of the environment around the idea of equality.
Anthropocenic Urbanity
In May 2013, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere reached 400 parts per million, roughly equivalent to the

- Debates / sustainable development, environment, nature, global warming, anthropocène

Flowers under the flagstones

Cédric Ansart & Emmanuel Boutefeu & translated by Oliver Waine — 2014-10-08T04:50:00Z

Cédric Ansart and Emmanuel Boutefeu explore new ways of enhancing city streets through the small-scale greening of footpaths and façades, and show how “asphalt flowers” can help to transform the way we share these spaces and blur the lines between the public and private domains.
---- Series: Nature in the City In recent years, flowers and climbing plants have been burgeoning along the footpaths and façades of city streets. This “greening” of urban thoroughfares is the result of operations

- From the Field / public space, environment, nature, urban ecology, green spaces, Lyon, Rennes

What role for urban farming?

Laure Le Gall & translated by Oliver Waine — 2014-09-17T04:55:00Z

While the benefits of farming activities in large West African cities are starting to be recognised within the scientific community, Laure Le Gall believes that urban agriculture is still struggling to find its place within public policy. The few efforts that have been made by planners in places like Ouagadougou belie a desire to contain such activities, or even to relegate them to the urban fringes.
---- Series: Nature in the City In a context where urban space comes at a premium,

- Debates / nature, urban agriculture, market gardening, agriculture, farming, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

For cities of a different nature

Jérémy Grangé & Sylvain Petitet & translated by Oliver Waine — 2014-03-26T05:50:00Z

City-dwellers want to see more of their metropolitan areas turned over to nature and urban public spaces; however, our cities today are still structured by a network of roads that were primarily built to manage motor traffic flows. Sylvain Petitet and Jérémy Grangé show how implementing sustainable urban infrastructure could provide city-dwellers with easy and convenient access to the places that generate most of their journeys, revealing a new form of network-based public space.
The 20th

- Essays / public space, public transportation, sustainable development, nature, well-being, bicycles, infrastructures, pedestrian, infrastructure, cycling

The poetry of the urban landscape

Émeline Bailly & translated by Oliver Waine — 2013-10-09T04:50:00Z

The ideal of “nature in the city” is a key characteristic of many urban projects. Émeline Bailly shows that the creation of landscaped spaces in urban areas can transform not just the city's image but also people's relationship with their environment, and in particular their mental perception of places.
---- Series: Nature in the CityLandscaping: a new form of urban creation?
The current enthusiasm for “landscapes” is evident in urban projects under way in both France and the United States

- Debates / urban planning, sustainable development, nature, image, landscape