Natura Urbana: Ecological Constellations in Urban Space maps the biodiversity flourishing in postindustrial margins, wastelands, and urban fringes — terrain where wolves return and wildflowers colonise rubble — through the intersecting lenses of urban ecology, feminist theory, and postcolonial thought.
About This Book
Urban nature is not simply a diminished version of the rural. In the spaces that escape metropolitan control — derelict lots, industrial edges, the corridors where predators reappear — a distinct and layered ecology takes hold. Matthew Gandy's Natura Urbana takes this seriously, building a critical synthesis between urban political ecology and the broader intellectual currents of posthuman and postcolonial scholarship. Gandy draws on knowledge produced not just by ecologists but by artists, writers, and citizens whose voices rarely enter environmental discourse. The result is a book that reframes urban biodiversity as both a material phenomenon and a site of contested cultural meaning — essential reading for those working across landscape urbanism, environmental humanities, and ecological design.
Key Features
- 432 pages of theoretical synthesis, cross-disciplinary analysis, and global case studies in urban ecology
- Author: Matthew Gandy
- Published by MIT Press, 2022
What You'll Discover
- How postindustrial wastelands function as unexpected reservoirs of urban biodiversity, challenging the hierarchy between managed and marginal green space
- The return of apex predators — wolves, leopards — to urban fringes, and what this signals about the porosity of the urban-rural boundary
- How feminist, posthuman, and postcolonial thought can extend and complicate the frameworks of urban political ecology
- The role of artists, writers, and non-specialist citizens in generating counterhegemonic knowledge about urban nature, outside institutional environmental discourse
About the Author
Matthew Gandy is the author of Natura Urbana, a study that draws together urban ecology, cultural geography, and critical theory. His work examines the intersections of nature, urban space, and diverse cultures of knowledge at a global scale.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 432
- Dimensions: 152 x 229 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9780262551335
- Publisher: MIT Press
- Publication Date: 2022
Perfect For: Landscape architects, urban ecologists, environmental humanities scholars, and designers engaged with questions of biodiversity, postindustrial space, and the politics of urban nature.