Wendy Steele - Planning Wild Cities: Human–Nature Relationships in the Urban Age

This book critically engages with the contemporary challenges and opportunities of wild cities in a climate of change.

A key focus of the book is exploring the nexus of possibilities for wild cities and the eco-ethical imagination needed to drive sustainable and resilient urban pathways. Many now have serious doubts about the prospects for humanity to live within cities that are socially just and responsive to planetary limits. Is it possible for planning to better serve, protect, and nurture our human and non-human worlds? This book argues it is.

Drawing on international literature and Australian case examples, this book explores issues around climate change, colonization, urban (in)security, and the rights to the city for both humans and nature. It is within this context that this book focuses on the urgent need to better understand how contemporary cities have changed, and the relational role of planning within it.

Planning Wild Cities will be of particular interest to students and scholars of planning, urban studies, and sustainable development, and for all those invested in reshaping our wild city futures.

Wendy Steele is an Associate Professor in Sustainability and Urban Planning with the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT University, Melbourne Australia. Her research and practice focus on cities in a climate of change, with a particular emphasis on climate justice, urban resilience, critical governance, infrastructures of care and planning theory. Her previous books include A Climate for Growth, Planning Across Borders and Global City Challenges: Debating a Concept, Improving a Practice.

This series offers a forum for original and innovative research that engages with key debates and concepts in the field. Titles within the series range from empirical investigations to theoretical engagements, offering international perspectives and multidisciplinary dialogues across the social sciences.

Imagining Sustainability

Creative Urban Environmental Governance in Chicago and Melbourne

Julie L. Cidell

Regenerative Urban Design and Ecosystem Biomimicry

Maibritt Pedersen Zari

The Politics of Urban Sustainability Transitions

Knowledge, Power and Governance

Edited by Jens Stissing Jensen, Philipp Spth, and Matthew Cashmore

Ecologies Design

Transforming Architecture, Landscape, and Urbanism

Edited by Maibritt Pedersen Zari, Peter Connolly and Mark Southcombe

Planning Wild Cities

HumanNature Relationships in the Urban Age

Wendy Steele

www.routledge.com/Routledge-Research-in-Sustainable-Urbanism/book-series/RRSU

HumanNature Relationships in the Urban Age

Wendy Steele

First published 2021

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2021 Wendy Steele

The right of Wendy Steele to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Steele, Wendy, author.

Title: Planning wild cities : human-nature relationships in the urban age Wendy Steele.

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. | Series: Routledge research in sustainable urbanism | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020016698 (print) | LCCN 2020016699 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138917927 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315688756 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: City planningEnvironmental aspectsCase studies. | City planningSocial aspectsCase studies. | Sustainable developmentPlanningCase studies.

Classification: LCC HT166 .S6845 2021 (print) | LCC HT166 (ebook) | DDC 307.1/216dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020016698

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020016699

ISBN: 978-1-138-91792-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-68875-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Goudy

by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

For

Jesse sweet child of mine

Russ the rivers run deep my lover

Context matters. As a Melbourne-based Australian urban scholar I would first like to acknowledge the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nations on whose unceded lands I live and work, and pay my respects to Aboriginal elders, past, present, and emerging. On this Wurundjeri land, Bunjil the eagle is the creator, reminding us of the need to respect, protect, and nurture each other and the land to care for Country.

I have been very fortunate to have been part of a lively and collegial community of critical scholars whose work has helped shape (and challenge) my thinking around the nature of wild cities over the years. A very special thanks in this regard to Libby Porter, Crystal Legacy, Karyn Bosomworth, Brian Coffey, Lauren Rickards, Jean Hillier, Donna Houston, Diana MacCallum, Jason Byrne, Ilan Wiesel, Cecily Maller, Anitra Nelson, Ian McShane, Yolande Strengers, Aiden Davison, Martin Mulligan, Aviva Reed, Marco Amati, Ben Cooke, Jago Dodson, Brendan Barrett, Karen Hussey, John Handmer, Sarah Pink, Stephen Dovers, Cathy Keys and colleagues in the Centre for Urban Research, RMIT.

This research was funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE120102428). As part of this fellowship I spent a short residence at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK. My thanks to both Stephen Graham and Simin Davoudi who generously hosted me at the university.

The support I have received from Taylor and Francis Publishing demonstrates that working relationships can be both generous and caring. In the UK, Annabelle Harris and Matthew Shobbrook have been consistently encouraging, kind, and incredibly patient. In Australia, the editorial suggestions and experience of Melanie Scaife were also very constructive and timely.

To my dear, dear friends over many years Jackie Kiewa, Kristen Lyons, Trevor Robertson, and Anthony Esposito, the shared gatherings, breakfasts, and dinners, holidays on remote beaches or walks in the bush and chats over lovely cups of tea. The gentle but persistent question, Hows the book going?, and prompts to open my starry heart, really helped!