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Constructing Ideologies and Valuing Nature in Two Eco-Cities
Citation:
GAMBIRAZZIO, G. C. AND J. Sze. Constructing Ideologies and Valuing Nature in Two Eco-Cities. Chapter 14, S.T. Picket, M. Cadenasso (ed.), Resilience in Ecology and Urban Design: Linking Theory and Practice for Sustainable Cities. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 3:289-296, (2013).
Impact/Purpose:
This chapter explores the changing social, political and economic processes that have complicated interrelations between people and nature in cities in the context of intensifying conditions of climate change. We do so by arguing that contemporary theories and practice of sustainability and urban ecology turn on ecological modernization narratives and practices (Fisher and Freudenburg 2001; Spaargaren and Mol 1992; Spaargaren et al. 2006; York and Rosa 2003; Young 2000). Moreover, we add that an urban ecological conceptual framework must take into account not only the complexity of urbanization processes but also conceptual accounts of the naturalization of nature embedded in ecological modernization narratives. We draw on two eco-city proposals, which we present as case studies for the example of contemporary ecology, sustainability and urban processes. The two eco-city proposals we examine include one located in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and another one in Shanghai, China. Through both, we examine how ecological modernization narratives of environmental and urban development processes have shifted the narratives from ecological issues and sustainability to an examination of eco-cities, i.e., cities designed to be ecologically and economic responsible.
Description:
Eco-city development is flourishing as the scale and scope of environmental damage becomes increasingly clear. While there are no standard criteria of what constitutes an eco-city, the term has been increasingly applied to a number of different projects that straddle a broad array of ideological and ecological goals. On the one hand, eco-city development represents a serious attempt to apply place-based pathways to environmental change, in particular as a strategy for adapting to climate change. However laudable these goals may be, eco-city development does not come without contradictions or complications, ecological or otherwise.