The spatialized political ecology of the city: Situated peripheries and the capitalocenic limits of urban affairs

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper aims to make a modest contribution to the debate on how the ecologies of urbanization help us understand the socio-spatial changes we confront in the climate emergency. The intervention is constructed in four steps. First, it speaks to what kind of Urban Political Ecology (UPE)—or generally what I call a “spatialized political ecology”—may be appropriate for urban society. In a second step, it historicizes and spatializes the narrative by introducing an urban political ecology of landscapes. For that, the paper mobilizes the concepts of boundaries, belts, and in-betweens. The third part illustrates the transformation of postsuburban political ecologies in three rather different world regions. The last part of this paper examines what the potential is and what need for action exists in an urban society threatened and conditioned by the climate emergency and the Capitalocene. Ultimately, the paper aspires to move the debate on UPE more into the direction of making it relevant for the urban affairs of a suburban planet.