Urban nature and the ecological imaginary

The essay “Urban Nature and the Ecological Imaginary” was originally published in 2006 as part of an edited collection entitled In the Nature of Cities: Urban Political Ecology and the Politics of Urban Metabolism. We consider a series of different ways in which urban nature has been conceptualized under modernity, ranging from functional interactions to more aesthetic or decorative elements. We suggest that much contemporary urban discourse is still suffused with a variety of organicist ideas derived from the nineteenth century that have been further elaborated under the impetus towards an “ecological imaginary”. This chapter explores an alternative conceptual lexicon that is better suited to the cultural and historical specificities of capitalist urbanization.