The Urban Question of the Environment

ended

Over the past half century, urbanism has become the cornerstone of global environmental action. Yet the term “environment” is ambiguous, multi-layered and contested. This is especially so when it is linked with the urban question, expressing a sense of collective urgency, but also demands for urban environmental justice that are irreducible to the greening of cities. This research project explores the urbanism-environment nexus historically and today. Building on a premise that “environment” is at once an ecological condition, a technological interface and a political metaphor, I examine how professional urbanists understood, designed and governed the environment. This transdisciplinary project focuses on three areas of urbanism—policy, design and research—and examines the genealogy of three interconnected fields, in which the environmental problematic has been central: urban regeneration, landscape urbanism, and urban science. This research spans the period between the 1960s and today, and analyzes the circulation of ideas, policies and practices among institutions, projects and individuals situated in the US, Europe and the former Eastern Bloc. What could environmental urbanism mean in the future? My research is underpinned by a sense of contemporary socio-environmental challenges, and aims to build bridges between historical, critical and strategic approaches in urban studies. By developing and departing from Michel Foucault’s concept of “environmentality,” this research draws attention to affinities and tensions in the urban arena between solution-focused ecological urbanism, demands for environmental equity and forms of environmental governmentality. While the concept throws into relief power relations associated with environmental action, it needs to be updated with respect to concrete ecological, technological and political dilemmas that the field of urbanism faced in the past and faces today. Could “environment” transform the urban question in ways that exceed technological solution, and become a signpost for more democratic urbanism?