The Urbanization of Nature in a (Post)Socialist Metropolis: An Urban Political Ecology of Allotment Gardening

Abstract

AbstractIn this article we explore how nature becomes part of the city through the example of allotment gardening in the city of Prague, in the Czech Republic. Prague allotments were established based on an ongoing political‐ecological process of urbanization of nature that was locally driven by socialist (from 1948 to 1989) and later neoliberal governance. We employ a situated urban political ecology (UPE) approach to analyse changes in the planning of allotments and the impact thereof on the experience of gardeners. This double focus allows us to uncover the effects of neoliberalization on the processes of production of urban nature in respect of both policy and everyday practice. We contrast contemporary capitalist urbanization with its socialist predecessor by showing the immediate effects of the acceptance of neoliberal modes of governance on allotments, urban nature and the understanding of the city. We open allotments as a terrain for UPE to turn attention to the (uneven) production of urban nature in a post‐socialist context that has thus far been largely absent from the UPE literature. We demonstrate that post‐socialist urbanization is a fruitful terrain that offers new opportunities to unmask the effects of neoliberalization on the production of uneven urban space and thus improves our understanding of contemporary uneven urbanisms.