In The Nature Of Cities ― Urban Political Ecology and The Politics Of Urban Metabolism

The conceptualization of nature and society as separate, dominating the intellectual landscape of the capitalist era, has given rise to the opposing viewpoint of political ecology, which recognizes the way environmental and social changes co-determine each other. Yet, there has been little work done on the political ecologies of cities, even though this process of co-determination remains just as applicable in urban settings. In this work, Heynen (geography, U. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, US), Kaika (urban geography, School of Geography and Environment, U. of Oxford, UK), and Swyngedouw (School of Geography and the Environment, U. of Oxford) present 15 papers that theoretically and empirically analyze central issues of urban political ecology, especially in terms of the metaphorical tropes of metabolism and circulation, considered both in terms of physical, chemical, and biological processes and in terms of these tropes discursive and symbolic powers. Annotation c2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Nik Heynen is an 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 and Erik Swyngedouw is a Professor in the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford.