Metropolitics

Agrarian Fantasy, Settler Colonial Property, and the Making of Industrial Johannesburg

Renugan Raidoo — 2026-01-20T06:00:00Z

Some of the gated estates in and around Johannesburg and Pretoria sell residents a settler colonial fantasy of a bucolic idyll away from the urban condition. But Renugan Raidoo examines the important role agricultural surplus played in mining industrialization, which tells a much more complex story of urban–rural relations.
---- Series: Provincializing the “Real-Estate Turn” “A piece of the past has found its' [sic] way to the future” in all-white majuscule is the first thing one sees on the

- Essays / Africa, South Africa, Global South, Johannesburg, Pretoria, gated communities, rural, colonial urban planning, agriculture, industry, history, apartheid, real-estate turn, real estate

On the Land Question in India: The Case of Sriperumbudur Industrial Region in Peri-Urban Chennai

V. Gajendran — 2025-12-23T06:00:00Z

Amidst intense demand for land, farmers near Chennai, India face dispossession by neglect.
---- Series: Provincializing the “Real-Estate Turn” My essay begins with a puzzle. The past two decades have been called the decades of intense land conflicts in India. There has been an outpouring of media and academic scholarship on agrarian landowners resisting and protesting the acquisition of their land for urban and infrastructure projects. In this context of land dispossession and opposition to

- Essays / India, Global South, land, land use, agriculture, farming, real estate, real-estate turn, periurban, Chennai

Large-Scale Farming in the Face of Competing Land Uses in Abidjan District, Côte d'Ivoire

Adjoba Marthe Koffi-Didia & translated by Oliver Waine — 2025-03-21T06:00:00Z

To the west of Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire's largest city, large farming operations—owned by multinational companies geared toward export markets—are today facing an obstacle posed by Abidjan's growing urban sprawl and the rise of land claims among Indigenous communities whose customary rights are threatened.
Songon Subprefecture is located to the west of the Abidjan metropolitan area, 23 km (14 miles) from Abidjan's central business district (Le Plateau), and covers an area of 621.71 km² (240.04

- From the Field / land rights, Côte d'Ivoire, Abidjan, Global South, agriculture, farming, land use, Africa, customary law, access to land, West Africa

Women Farmers Doing It for Themselves? The Ambiguous Consequences of Non-Mixed Engagement

Clémentine Comer & translated by Oliver Waine — 2022-11-01T06:00:00Z

In the farming world, many women's groups defend the cause of women farmers. Clémentine Comer analyzes the ambivalences of these single-gender spaces, from the perpetuation of traditional visions of male and female roles to the questioning of social inequalities.
In France, organizations devoted to the specific mobilization of women in agriculture – established in the wake of the Catholic young farmers' movement and the widespread teaching of domestic science – took on a new form in the

- From the Field / agriculture, feminism, farming, non-mixity, women

“Land Is the New Sugar”: A Review of Sai Balakrishnan's Shareholder Cities

Thomas Crowley — 2020-12-15T06:00:00Z

Shareholder Cities argues that India's urban corridors are driven by complex negotiations, transformations, and power struggles, often led by the class and caste groups who control agrarian capital in urbanizing regions.
At the start of her book Shareholder Cities, Sai Balakrishnan quickly and convincingly dismisses popular conceptions of present-day India as a collision of superhighways and bullock carts, “modern, urban, Westernized India, and the primitive, rural, superstitious India” (p.

- Reviews / India, real estate, infrastructure, urbanization, Mumbai, power play, rural, agriculture, farming, Global South

How Can Talking Save Trees?

Léo Magnin & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-07-12T05:00:00Z

In rural France, tree exchange systems seek to avoiding the felling that typically accompanies exchanges of parcels between farmers resulting from land-consolidation procedures. Leo Magnin's analysis of how this system operates reveals a means of managing conflicts between environmental protection on the one hand and individual property rights on the other.
On Tuesday, February 6, 2018, the village of La Siouve1 in the Auvergne region of central France wakes to negative temperatures. It' is 9

- From the Field / land consolidation, hedgerows, trees, conflict, farming, agriculture, landscape, environment, environmental protection, ecology, rural, France

The Risk of “Foodwashing” in Calls for Innovative Urban Projects

Paula Macé Le Ficher & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-02-22T06:00:00Z

Paula Macé Le Ficher analyzes the ways in which farming and food issues have been integrated into calls for innovative projects organized in Greater Paris, and highlights the potential these programs have for fostering new developments in the field of urban agriculture—while remaining realistic about extent to which they might transform the urban food system in the Paris region.
Since the start of the 2010s, food has emerged as an essential theme for urban projects. This rising prominence

- From the Field / food, Greater Paris, development, urban project, urban agriculture, foodwashing, calls for projects, farming, agriculture

Urban Desires and Lust for Land

Éric Denis (†) & translated by Oliver Waine — 2018-04-20T05:00:00Z

In the Global South, vast swathes of periurban and agricultural land are being sold off and converted into financial windfalls. Éric Denis shows that the working classes also play a role in this commodification of land, giving rise to new means of producing the city. Moreover, this lust for land reveals these populations' desire to see the city expand and reach their doorstep.
---- Series: Land Rights in the Urban Global South. Regularization and Land-Ownership Policies in Low-Income

- From the Field / urban planning, urbanization, urban sprawl, periurban, land, agriculture, farming, Global South, working classes, India, land rights, land titles, land titling, production of the city, land use, commodification

Demystifying Urban Agriculture in Detroit

Flaminia Paddeu — 2017-12-14T05:30:00Z

Urban agriculture projects in North American shrinking cities have been the subject of much media attention in recent years. Taking the example of Detroit as her starting point, Flaminia Paddeu asks what the real benefits of this practice are for the residents of cities in decline.
---- Series: Shrinking Cities The French documentary Demain, showcasing a world tour of ecological alternatives and viewed by more than a million people to date, depicts the city of Detroit as a Mecca of

- From the Field / deindustrialization, Rust Belt, Baltimore, urban agriculture, agriculture, farming, Detroit, Philadelphia, vacant lots, urban decay, shrinking cities, urban decline, Cleveland, smart shrinkage, urban shrinkage, degrowth, shrinkage, wasteland, revegetation, ecological transition, socio-ecological transition

Transition towns, or the desire for an urban alternative

Adrien Krauz & translated by Oliver Waine — 2015-05-15T04:50:00Z

The entry of the term “transition” into the vocabulary of public action shows that questions regarding how to build more sustainable models for society are still relevant. The response offered by “transition towns” is a model for action involving a variety of local and citizen-led initiatives that are based on a method for sustainable environmental development called permaculture.
---- Series: The Renewed Relevance of Urban-Planning Models? Faced with the threat of an environmental crisis,

- Essays / utopia, sustainable development, LETS, local currencies, urban agriculture, agriculture, resilience, model, sustainable urban planning, permaculture, transition towns