In the Nature of Cities In the Nature of Cities engages with the long overdue task of re-inserting questions of nature and ecology into the urban debate. This path-breaking collection charts the terrain of urban political ecology, and untangles the economic, political, social and ecological processes that form contemporary urban landscapes. Written by key political ecology scholars, the essays in this book attest that the re- entry of the ecological agenda into urban theory is vital, both in terms of understanding contemporary urbanization processes, and of engaging in a meaningful environmental politics. The question of whose nature is, or becomes, urbanized, and the uneven power relations through which this socio-metabolic transformation takes place, are the central themes debated in this book. Foregrounding the socio-ecological activism that contests the dominant forms of urbanizing nature, the contributors endeavour to open up a research agenda and a political platform that sets pointers for democratizing the politics through which nature becomes urbanized and contemporary cities are produced as both enabling and disempowering dwelling spaces for humans and non-humans alike. Nik Heynen is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Maria Kaika is Lecturer in Urban Geography at the University of Oxford, School of Geography and the Environment, and Fellow of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford. Erik Swyngedouw is Professor at the University of Oxford, School of Geography and the Environment, and Fellow of St. Peter’s College, Oxford. Questioning Cities Edited by Gary Bridge, University of Bristol, UK and Sophie Watson, The Open University, UK The Questioning Cities series brings together an unusual mix of urban scholars under the title. Rather than taking a broadly economic approach, planning approach or more socio- cultural approach, it aims to include titles from a multi-disciplinary field of those interested in critical urban analysis. The series thus includes authors who draw on contemporary social, urban and critical theory to explore different aspects of the city. It is not therefore a series made up of books which are largely case studies of different cities and predominantly descriptive. It seeks instead to extend current debates, in most cases through excellent empirical work, and to develop sophisticated understandings of the city from a number of disciplines including geography, sociology, politics, planning, cultural studies, philosophy and literature. The series also aims to be thoroughly international where possible, to be innovative, to surprise, and to challenge received wisdom in urban studies. Overall it will encourage a multi-disciplinary and international dialogue always bearing in mind that simple description or empirical observation which is not located within a broader theoretical framework would not—for this series at least—be enough. Published: Global Metropolitan John Rennie Short Reason in the City of Difference Gary Bridge In the Nature of Cities Urban political ecology and the politics of urban metabolism Edited by Nik Heynen, Maria Kaika and Erik Swyngedouw Ordinary Cities Between modernity and development Jenny Robinson Forthcoming titles: Cities and Race America’s new black ghettos David Wilson City Publics The (dis)enchantment of urban encounters Sophie Wilson Small Cities David Bell and Mark Jayne Urban Space and Cityscapes Christoph Lindner In the Nature of Cities Urban political ecology and the politics of urban metabolism Edited by Nik Heynen, Maria Kaika and Erik Swyngedouw LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.” © 2006 Nik Heynen, Maria Kaika and Eric Swyngedouw for selection and editorial matter; the contributors for individual chapters All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data In the nature of cities : urban political ecology and the politics of urban metabolism/edited by Nikolas C.Heynen, Maria Kaika and Erik Swyngedouw. p. cm.—(Questioning cities series) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Urban ecology. 2. Political ecology. I. Heynen, Nikolas C. II. Kaika, Maria. III. Swyngedouw, E. (Erik) IV. Series. HT241.U727 2005 307.76–dc22 2005012463 ISBN 0-203-02752-3 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0-415-36827-8 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-415-36828-6 (pbk) ISBN13: 9-78-0-415-36827-8 (hbk) ISBN13: 9-78-0-415-36828-5 (pbk) Contents List of illustrations viii Notes on contributors x Foreword xii NEIL SMITH 1 Urban political ecology: politicizing the production of urban natures 1 NIK HEYNEN, MARIA KAIKA, AND ERIK SWYNGEDOUW 2 Metabolic urbanization: the making of cyborg cities 20 ERIK SWYNGEDOUW 3 Metropolitics and metabolics: rolling out environmentalism in Toronto 40 ROGER KEIL AND JULIE-ANNE BOUDREAU 4 Urban nature and the ecological imaginary 62 MATTHEW GANDY 5 Nature’s carnival: the ecology of pleasure at Coney Island 73 ELIZA DARLING 6 The desire to metabolize nature: Edward Loveden Loveden, William 90 Vanderstegen, and the disciplining of the river Thames STUART OLIVER 7 Turfgrass subjects: the political economy of urban monoculture 106 PAUL ROBBINS AND JULIE SHARP 8 Justice of eating in the city: the political ecology of urban hunger 124 NIK HEYNEN 9 Metabolisms of obe-city: flows of fat through bodies, cities and sewers 137 SIMON MARVIN AND WILL MEDD 10 The political ecology of water scarcity: the 1989–1991 Athenian drought 150 MARIA KAIKA 11 The metabolic processes of capital accumulation in Durban’s waterscape 165 ALEX LOFTUS 12 The public/private conundrum of urban water: a view from South Africa 183 LAILA SMITH AND GREG RUITERS 13 Inherited fragmentations and narratives of environmental control in 199 entrepreneurial Philadelphia ALEC BROWNLOW 14 Transnational alliances and global politics: new geographies of urban 216 environmental justice struggles DAVID N.PELLOW 15 Urban metabolism as target: contemporary war as forced demodernization 234 STEPHEN GRAHAM Index 255 Illustrations FIGURES 3.1 “Watering the road again?” Municipal advertising campaign 44 against water waste 3.2 “Relax, it’s just a weed!” Municipal advertising campaign for 45 the new by-law that bans pesticides from private ornamental gardens 13.1 Fairmount Park system 203 13.2 Fairmount Park budget as a percentage of Philadelphia’s 204 operating budget, 1950–2001 13.3 Cobbs Creek Park and vicinity 206 13.4 “At the stables”, Fairmount Park Guard, circa 1960 208 13.5 Population and park budget trends, 1950–2000 208 13.6 Ecology of fear 209 15.1 John Warden’s (1995) Five-Ring Model of the strategic make- 241 up of contemporary societies 15.2 “A new model for societal structure”: Edward Felker’s 243 adaptation of Warden’s Five-Ring Model TABLES 2.1 The metabolism of Greater London 34 7.1 Pesticides used in US homes and gardens 110 9.1 Strategies for dealing with fat: removal, prevention and 144 acceptance 15.1 Patterson’s models of the first-, second- and third-order effects 243 of disrupting an enemy’s critical infrastructure systems: the example of power Contributors Julie-Anne Boudreau is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at York University. Her research focuses on urban social movements and state restructuring. Alec Brownlow is Assistant Professor and Acting Director of the Environmental Studies Program, Department of Geography and Urban Studies, Temple University. His research broadly explores issues of and intersections between urban ecology, public space, human-environment, and social theory. Eliza Darling recently completed a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the City University of New York’s Graduate School and University Center. She writes about political ecology, the production of nature, rural gentrification, urban social theory, and children’s literature. Matthew Gandy is Reader in the Department of Geography at University College London. His research interests are primarily concerned with cultural and environmental dimensions of urban landscape. Stephen Graham is a Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Durham. His research develops critical and “socio-technical” perspectives to the reconfiguration of cities, technologies, mobility systems and the relations between cities, war and terrorism. He is the co-author of Telecommunications and the City, Splintering Urbanism (both with Simon Marvin), co-editor of Managing Cities, and editor of the Cybercities Reader and Cities, War and Terrorism. Nik Heynen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His research uses critical social theory to consider the production of uneven urban environments, with specific attention toward urban hunger and urban forestry. Maria Kaika is a Lecturer in Urban Geography, University of Oxford, School of Geography and the Environment, and Fellow of St Edmund Hall. Her research interests lie with modernist urbanism and nature; representations of nature and the city in the modernist movement; governance and environmental policy; the political ecology of water supply in western cities; European water policy. She is author of City of Flows: nature, modernity and the city (Routledge 2005). Roger Keil is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies and the Department of Political Science at York University, Toronto, Canada. His research interests lie with urban ecological politics and the politics in world cities.