Environments of Planetary Urbanization

What role do spaces beyond the city play in urbanization? How have such spaces been transformed during the geohistory of capitalism? This volume brings together texts collaboratively produced by three researchers in the Urban Theory Lab to address these questions. Planetary urbanization is understood here not only with reference to the global expansion and proliferation of cities, but as an evolving web of metabolic relations between cities and the diverse operational landscapes that support them across the earth. Through studies of operational landscapes in various regions of the world and critical analyses of inherited approaches to urban theory, the authors portray capitalist urbanization as a metabolic monstrosity that degrades the biospheric foundations of both human and nonhuman life.

• Conceptualizes planetary urbanization as a thickening web of relations between cities and operational landscapes
• Critically evaluates and updates urban theory in relation to contemporary planetary environmental transformations and crises
• Analyzes the essential role of mining, agriculture, and logistics in the dynamics of capitalist urbanization