Environments of Planetary Urbanization reframes urbanisation not as a city-bound phenomenon but as a metabolic system spanning the entire earth — operational landscapes included — and implicates capitalism directly in the degradation of biospheric life.
About This Book
This volume from the Urban Theory Lab challenges the assumption that urbanisation ends at the city's edge. Neil Brenner, Swarnabh Ghosh, and Nikos Katsikis argue that cities are sustained by vast operational landscapes — forests, agricultural zones, energy infrastructure, extraction sites — whose transformation under capitalism constitutes what the authors call a metabolic monstrosity. Drawing on case studies from multiple regions of the world and critically re-examining inherited urban theory, the book constructs a geohistorical account of planetary urbanisation that is as much an ecological argument as a spatial one. Essential reading for urban theorists, architects engaging with landscape and territory, and scholars of the built environment.
Key Features
- 240 pages of theoretical essays and regional case studies examining operational landscapes across the globe
- Authors: Neil Brenner, Swarnabh Ghosh, Nikos Katsikis
- Published by JOVIS, 2023
What You'll Discover
- How planetary urbanisation extends beyond city growth to encompass the operational landscapes that metabolically support urban life
- The geohistorical relationship between capitalist development and the transformation of non-urban spaces across different world regions
- A critical reassessment of inherited urban theory frameworks and their limitations in accounting for landscapes outside the city
- How capitalist urbanisation degrades the biospheric foundations underpinning both human and non-human life
About the Author
Neil Brenner, Swarnabh Ghosh, and Nikos Katsikis are researchers at the Urban Theory Lab, where their work centres on the spatial dimensions of capitalist urbanisation, operational landscapes, and planetary urbanism. Their collaborative research draws on critical urban theory to interrogate the metabolic relations between cities and the wider terrestrial systems that sustain them.
Specifications
- Format: Softcover
- Pages: 240
- Dimensions: 16.5 x 24 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783986122096
- Publisher: JOVIS
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Urban theorists, architects and landscape architects working at territorial scale, academics in geography and planning, and designers engaging with ecological and infrastructure systems.