Global Urban Environments

Urban political ecology seeks to understand the ways in which our urban environments are produced and reproduced, focusing on questions such as who decides, how they decide, who benefits and who loses. It is an approach that aims to uncover how political, social and economic relations structure access to the urban environment, that is, to our natural-social surroundings. Urban political ecology also seeks to imagine more just and sustainable political-economic systems, as well as democratic systems that ensure a more equal distribution of power in society. As an overarching research frame, many of BCNUEJ’s papers are situated within the field of urban political ecology.

• “Value Grabbing”: A Political Ecology of Rent (Capitalism Nature Socialism, 2017)