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

Author Biography

Neil Brenner is the Lucy Flower Professor of Urban Sociology, chair of the Committee on Environment, Geography, and Urbanization (CEGU), and director of the Urban Theory Lab at the University of Chicago. He edited Implosions/Explosions: Towards a Study of Planetary Urbanization (JOVIS, 2014).

Swarnabh Ghosh is a PhD candidate at Harvard University working at the convergence of critical geography and environmental　history. His writings have appeared in　Critical Historical Studies,　Dialogues in Human Geography, Environment and Planning A, and Urban Studies, among others. Nikos Katsikis is an urbanist working at the intersection of urbanization theory, design, and geospatial analysis. He is an assistant professor of urbanism at TU Delft, where he coleads the Critical Environments group, and an affiliated researcher with the Urban Theory Lab at the University of Chicago.

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