N. Katsikis
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1
Spatializing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
The role of urbanization in SDGs localization across spatial scales
This paper examines the question of localizing SDGs by linking them to the variegated spatialities of urbanization. The guiding hypothesis is that the processes underlying SDGs are connected to dominant urbanization processes that characterize subnational regions, i.e. processes of concentrated, or extended urbanization, according to the Planetary Urbanization literature. It focuses on the relationship of a selection of 6 Sustainable Development Goals and 52 associated targets with the scales and landscapes produced through concentrated and extended urbanization processes, aiming to contribute to a systematic understanding on the degree to which they can be effectively monitored and achieved at subnational levels. As these processes are inherently multiscalar, and connect variegated landscapes across and within territories, the implementation of SDGs would need to acknowledge, contextualize, and transform this diversity of scales and landscapes. The paper develops a theoretical and conceptual apparatus for comprehending and assessing the relationship of SDGs with core urbanization processes that largely shape the production of space and its social and ecological inequalities, thus spatializing, and ‘urbanizing’ them in order to question the capacity for localizing them.
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This paper examines the question of localizing SDGs by linking them to the variegated spatialities of urbanization. The guiding hypothesis is that the processes underlying SDGs are connected to dominant urbanization processes that characterize subnational regions, i.e. processes of concentrated, or extended urbanization, according to the Planetary Urbanization literature. It focuses on the relationship of a selection of 6 Sustainable Development Goals and 52 associated targets with the scales and landscapes produced through concentrated and extended urbanization processes, aiming to contribute to a systematic understanding on the degree to which they can be effectively monitored and achieved at subnational levels. As these processes are inherently multiscalar, and connect variegated landscapes across and within territories, the implementation of SDGs would need to acknowledge, contextualize, and transform this diversity of scales and landscapes. The paper develops a theoretical and conceptual apparatus for comprehending and assessing the relationship of SDGs with core urbanization processes that largely shape the production of space and its social and ecological inequalities, thus spatializing, and ‘urbanizing’ them in order to question the capacity for localizing them.
This paper advances a theoretical synthesis aspiring to extend the concept of spatial capital through a better elaboration of its engagement with more-than-human and more-than-city dimensions. It examines how the dialectics of concentrated and extended urbanization can shed further light on understanding how human and more-than-human assemblages take different forms across city as well as more-than-city landscapes, and how these arrangements develop into patterns of social and ecological inequality. Through this investigation, it aims to develop novel theoretical insights on how the organization of spatial environments enables the variegated production and unequal appropriation of social and ecological values.
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This paper advances a theoretical synthesis aspiring to extend the concept of spatial capital through a better elaboration of its engagement with more-than-human and more-than-city dimensions. It examines how the dialectics of concentrated and extended urbanization can shed further light on understanding how human and more-than-human assemblages take different forms across city as well as more-than-city landscapes, and how these arrangements develop into patterns of social and ecological inequality. Through this investigation, it aims to develop novel theoretical insights on how the organization of spatial environments enables the variegated production and unequal appropriation of social and ecological values.
For over a century, planetary urbanisation has reshaped the Earth’s terrain, not only through city growth but by constructing a vast “hinterland”. This web of landscapes for primary production (agriculture, forestry, mining, fishing), circulation, and waste disposal sustains urban life and impacts over 70% of the planet. Globalised and specialised under capitalism, these “operational landscapes” exploit human and non-human natures, extracting ecological surplus for profit. This contribution critiques the operational landscape mode of production as a driver of social inequality, environmental degradation, and ecological crisis and sketches potential pathways on how it could be transcended. Three paradigms are explored as offering starting points for developing alternatives: “Ecoregionalism”, emphasising localised, self-sufficient systems aligned with ecological boundaries; “Circularity”, focusing on resource efficiency, recycling, and waste minimisation; “Degrowth”, advocating reduced production and consumption to balance environmental sustainability with human well-being. The study examines the potentials and limitations of the urban metabolisms suggested through these pathways, and concludes by proposing a shift toward collective forms of territorial organisation that prioritise ecological and social value over profit, envisioning sustainable multiscalar bio-geographical interdependencies as essential for a post-capitalist future.
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For over a century, planetary urbanisation has reshaped the Earth’s terrain, not only through city growth but by constructing a vast “hinterland”. This web of landscapes for primary production (agriculture, forestry, mining, fishing), circulation, and waste disposal sustains urban life and impacts over 70% of the planet. Globalised and specialised under capitalism, these “operational landscapes” exploit human and non-human natures, extracting ecological surplus for profit. This contribution critiques the operational landscape mode of production as a driver of social inequality, environmental degradation, and ecological crisis and sketches potential pathways on how it could be transcended. Three paradigms are explored as offering starting points for developing alternatives: “Ecoregionalism”, emphasising localised, self-sufficient systems aligned with ecological boundaries; “Circularity”, focusing on resource efficiency, recycling, and waste minimisation; “Degrowth”, advocating reduced production and consumption to balance environmental sustainability with human well-being. The study examines the potentials and limitations of the urban metabolisms suggested through these pathways, and concludes by proposing a shift toward collective forms of territorial organisation that prioritise ecological and social value over profit, envisioning sustainable multiscalar bio-geographical interdependencies as essential for a post-capitalist future.
Agroecology as a Practice of Care supported by Blockchain and DAOs
The speculative case of Murcia's Mar Menor Lagoon
Conference paper
(2024)
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Katerina Inglezaki, Nikos Katsikis, Diego Sepulveda Carmona, Mariana Pestana, Nuno Jardim Nunes
This paper speculates on using blockchain and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) in agroecological regeneration, focusing on the case of Spain’s Mar Menor. It highlights the ecological challenges of intensive agriculture, drawing on theories like Haraway’s cyborg metaphor and Latour’s actor-network theory to contextualize the crisis within the interplay of human and non-human actors. The study introduces a conceptual blockchain-based prototype to automate ecosystem resilience through DAOs that manage land and agricultural practices. It proposes strategic interventions such as reforestation with nitrogen-fixing trees, cultivating flood-resistant crops, and the creation of new agro-settlements. The paper argues that blockchain technologies can optimize these strategies by enabling precise monitoring and management, thus enhancing soil fertility, sustainable agriculture, and community sustainability. It presents a vision of agroecosystems as resilient, autonomous entities capable of addressing ecological and economic challenges.
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This paper speculates on using blockchain and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) in agroecological regeneration, focusing on the case of Spain’s Mar Menor. It highlights the ecological challenges of intensive agriculture, drawing on theories like Haraway’s cyborg metaphor and Latour’s actor-network theory to contextualize the crisis within the interplay of human and non-human actors. The study introduces a conceptual blockchain-based prototype to automate ecosystem resilience through DAOs that manage land and agricultural practices. It proposes strategic interventions such as reforestation with nitrogen-fixing trees, cultivating flood-resistant crops, and the creation of new agro-settlements. The paper argues that blockchain technologies can optimize these strategies by enabling precise monitoring and management, thus enhancing soil fertility, sustainable agriculture, and community sustainability. It presents a vision of agroecosystems as resilient, autonomous entities capable of addressing ecological and economic challenges.
Densities of Urbanization
More-than-City, More-than-Human
The concentration of human populations in dense settlements, from small towns, to cities, to metropolitan and post-metropolitan formations and diffuse agglomeration zones, lies at the core of the urbanization process. But these high concentrations of people, economic activities, capital, structures, and infrastructures that characterize urban life are impossible to be sustained without a much more geographically extensive web of landscapes of primary production, circulation and waste disposal that form the other side of the urbanization process. In fact, cities due to their high densities, cover no more that 3% of the planetary terrain, while these “other” landscapes that support these high densities, activate more than 70% of the earth’s land surface. In the context of accelerated environmental crises and transition planning efforts, addressing these indirect consequences of urbanization (e.g. pollution, environmental degradation, or biodiversity loss) on more than city, more-than-human landscapes is conditioning the planning of future urban and infrastructural developments. This contribution aims to interrogate the condition of urban density in this broader perspective, illustrating how the densification of human populations in cities, constructs more-than-human densification patterns across more-than-city environments. Specifically, we situate our investigation in the Dutch context and its more-than-city environments. We explore how, in this respect, densification can be conceived as a broader characteristic of the urbanization process, not just the city. Industrial agricultural systems pack plants together in extreme densities, as do large scale Confined Animal Feeding Operations with livestock. We use this framework to examine the country’s long history of agricultural modernization, intensification, and crises, highlighting the convoluted interdependencies between more-than-city landscapes and dense cities. Through historical, conceptual and cartographic exploration, this contribution aims to help reveal the mirror image of urban densities, extending the scope of the conference’s theme of the dense city to include the dense more-than city in planning history.
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The concentration of human populations in dense settlements, from small towns, to cities, to metropolitan and post-metropolitan formations and diffuse agglomeration zones, lies at the core of the urbanization process. But these high concentrations of people, economic activities, capital, structures, and infrastructures that characterize urban life are impossible to be sustained without a much more geographically extensive web of landscapes of primary production, circulation and waste disposal that form the other side of the urbanization process. In fact, cities due to their high densities, cover no more that 3% of the planetary terrain, while these “other” landscapes that support these high densities, activate more than 70% of the earth’s land surface. In the context of accelerated environmental crises and transition planning efforts, addressing these indirect consequences of urbanization (e.g. pollution, environmental degradation, or biodiversity loss) on more than city, more-than-human landscapes is conditioning the planning of future urban and infrastructural developments. This contribution aims to interrogate the condition of urban density in this broader perspective, illustrating how the densification of human populations in cities, constructs more-than-human densification patterns across more-than-city environments. Specifically, we situate our investigation in the Dutch context and its more-than-city environments. We explore how, in this respect, densification can be conceived as a broader characteristic of the urbanization process, not just the city. Industrial agricultural systems pack plants together in extreme densities, as do large scale Confined Animal Feeding Operations with livestock. We use this framework to examine the country’s long history of agricultural modernization, intensification, and crises, highlighting the convoluted interdependencies between more-than-city landscapes and dense cities. Through historical, conceptual and cartographic exploration, this contribution aims to help reveal the mirror image of urban densities, extending the scope of the conference’s theme of the dense city to include the dense more-than city in planning history.
In recent decades, the field of urban studies has neglected the question of the hinterland: the city's complex, changing relations to the diverse noncity landscapes that support urban life. Neil Brenner and Nikos Katsikis argue that this ‘hinterland question’ remains essential, but must also be radically reimagined under contemporary conditions.
...
In recent decades, the field of urban studies has neglected the question of the hinterland: the city's complex, changing relations to the diverse noncity landscapes that support urban life. Neil Brenner and Nikos Katsikis argue that this ‘hinterland question’ remains essential, but must also be radically reimagined under contemporary conditions.
This issue of Footprint explores specific spatialities and materialities found across those operational landscapes of primary production that constitute the metabolic basis of urbanisation. To the extent that these landscapes are increasingly automated and digitised, production and circulation practices are becoming more capital intensive and even less labour-intensive. While amplifying the precarity of human labour, this process relies on appropriating the work of more-than-human assemblages of machines, plants, animals and microorganisms. Central to the focus of this issue is understanding the way these processes are grounded in specific architectural and landscape configurations. In this way, we also aim to complement the debates on past issues of Footprint, offering an investigation of the impact of technological transformations beyond the concentrated landscapes of human inhabitation.
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This issue of Footprint explores specific spatialities and materialities found across those operational landscapes of primary production that constitute the metabolic basis of urbanisation. To the extent that these landscapes are increasingly automated and digitised, production and circulation practices are becoming more capital intensive and even less labour-intensive. While amplifying the precarity of human labour, this process relies on appropriating the work of more-than-human assemblages of machines, plants, animals and microorganisms. Central to the focus of this issue is understanding the way these processes are grounded in specific architectural and landscape configurations. In this way, we also aim to complement the debates on past issues of Footprint, offering an investigation of the impact of technological transformations beyond the concentrated landscapes of human inhabitation.
Landscape-Based Fire Resilience
Identifying Interaction Between Landscape Dynamics and Fire Regimes in the Mediterranean Region
Wildfires are widely viewed as key evolving inputs of Mediterranean ecosystem. But anthropogenic climate changes and other socioecological recessions have transformed normal wildfire into megafire. The paradigm shift is needed since the suppression capacity has been increasingly overcome from the fire department. This research is aiming to integrate diverse landscape dynamics and fire regimes, to interpret the interactions between them and identify a series of heterogeneous fire typologies in the Mediterranean region in order to support the application of landscape-based approaches. By classifying the land system dynamics into meteorologic, physiographic, biological and anthropogenic indicators (in relation with wildfire ignition and propagation), geographic information system based approaches and statistic analysis are applied to create diagnostic mappings. The results establish 10 types of landscape-based fire typologies which can be used as the decision support tool to prioritize risk mechanism and then lead to mitigate wildfire risk by changing contextual territorial elements in landscape system in order to create an integral long time territorial design.
...
Wildfires are widely viewed as key evolving inputs of Mediterranean ecosystem. But anthropogenic climate changes and other socioecological recessions have transformed normal wildfire into megafire. The paradigm shift is needed since the suppression capacity has been increasingly overcome from the fire department. This research is aiming to integrate diverse landscape dynamics and fire regimes, to interpret the interactions between them and identify a series of heterogeneous fire typologies in the Mediterranean region in order to support the application of landscape-based approaches. By classifying the land system dynamics into meteorologic, physiographic, biological and anthropogenic indicators (in relation with wildfire ignition and propagation), geographic information system based approaches and statistic analysis are applied to create diagnostic mappings. The results establish 10 types of landscape-based fire typologies which can be used as the decision support tool to prioritize risk mechanism and then lead to mitigate wildfire risk by changing contextual territorial elements in landscape system in order to create an integral long time territorial design.
Book chapter
(2021)
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N. Katsikis, Neil Brenner
Contemporary conceptualizations of the urban condition emphasize the specific geographies, dynamics and consequences of city-building processes, whether in specific regional contexts or as a national, continental or global aggregation. The urban is conceived with reference to the conditions, morphologies and transformations of the city, a specific type of human settlement or techno-infrastructure that is contrasted to other, putatively non-urban spaces. Prior to the 1970s, the field of urban studies devoted extensive attention to the role of non-city landscapes in the urbanization process. The major contemporary counterpoints to this hegemonic, city-centric approach to urban studies are associated with various streams of urban ecological thought.
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Contemporary conceptualizations of the urban condition emphasize the specific geographies, dynamics and consequences of city-building processes, whether in specific regional contexts or as a national, continental or global aggregation. The urban is conceived with reference to the conditions, morphologies and transformations of the city, a specific type of human settlement or techno-infrastructure that is contrasted to other, putatively non-urban spaces. Prior to the 1970s, the field of urban studies devoted extensive attention to the role of non-city landscapes in the urbanization process. The major contemporary counterpoints to this hegemonic, city-centric approach to urban studies are associated with various streams of urban ecological thought.
How can the geographical organization of the planet be conceived beyond the spatial dimension? Can zoning, a familiar planning tool for shaping cities, be a relevant device for organizing the non-city landscapes that support urban life? What kind of zoning would that be?
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How can the geographical organization of the planet be conceived beyond the spatial dimension? Can zoning, a familiar planning tool for shaping cities, be a relevant device for organizing the non-city landscapes that support urban life? What kind of zoning would that be?
Review
(2021)
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Thomas Turnbull, Maik Renner, Annu Panwar, Nikos Katsikis, Axel Kleidon, Alexander Schindler
The Mississippi River Basin is a vast near-planar surface, an area upon which sunlight falls and wind flows. Its gently banked geomorphology channels precipitation, sediment, biota, and human activity into a dynamic locus of regional Earth system interactions. This paper describes the major features of this region’s energy exchanges from a thermodynamic Earth systems perspective. This analysis is combined with descriptions of the historical and socio-political contexts that have helped shape energy use. In doing so, the paper contrasts the region’s available energy exchanges and flows with their anthropogenic diversion, providing an account of human impact at a regional scale. It also offers theoretical estimates of the potential availabilities of renewable energy. This is contrasted with a description of the geological formation of stocks of fossil energy in the region. On these bases, a number of maps are presented and an assessment of the region’s energy flows is offered. These exercises point to significant affordances for achieving regional de-fossilisation at the river basin scale.
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The Mississippi River Basin is a vast near-planar surface, an area upon which sunlight falls and wind flows. Its gently banked geomorphology channels precipitation, sediment, biota, and human activity into a dynamic locus of regional Earth system interactions. This paper describes the major features of this region’s energy exchanges from a thermodynamic Earth systems perspective. This analysis is combined with descriptions of the historical and socio-political contexts that have helped shape energy use. In doing so, the paper contrasts the region’s available energy exchanges and flows with their anthropogenic diversion, providing an account of human impact at a regional scale. It also offers theoretical estimates of the potential availabilities of renewable energy. This is contrasted with a description of the geological formation of stocks of fossil energy in the region. On these bases, a number of maps are presented and an assessment of the region’s energy flows is offered. These exercises point to significant affordances for achieving regional de-fossilisation at the river basin scale.
Operational Landscapes
Hinterlands of the Capitalocene
In recent decades, the field of urban studies has neglected the question of the hinterland: the city's complex, changing relations to the diverse noncity landscapes that support urban life. Neil Brenner and Nikos Katsikis of the Urban Theory Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Design argue that this ‘hinterland question’ remains essential, but must also be radically reimagined under contemporary conditions.
...
In recent decades, the field of urban studies has neglected the question of the hinterland: the city's complex, changing relations to the diverse noncity landscapes that support urban life. Neil Brenner and Nikos Katsikis of the Urban Theory Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Design argue that this ‘hinterland question’ remains essential, but must also be radically reimagined under contemporary conditions.
Journal article
(2019)
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N. Katsikis
Urbanization organizes the planetary terrain—not just through cities and agglomeration zones, but also through the totality of diffused production areas and global commodity chains. On the basis of a metageographical analysis, urbanist Nikos Katsikis portrays the extensive transformation of the planetary terrain through the assembly of operational landscapes into a functional “Hinterglobe."
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Urbanization organizes the planetary terrain—not just through cities and agglomeration zones, but also through the totality of diffused production areas and global commodity chains. On the basis of a metageographical analysis, urbanist Nikos Katsikis portrays the extensive transformation of the planetary terrain through the assembly of operational landscapes into a functional “Hinterglobe."
Book chapter
(2018)
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N. Katsikis
This essay aims to challenge the definition of the Horizontal Metropolis. It starts with an understanding of urbanization as a process of generalized geographical organization, where variegated forms of agglomerations (from the city to the metropolis and the various forms of post-metropolitan urbanization patterns) are only the focal points in the utilization of the whole earth by humans. The essay will try to investigate how the global system of agglomerations, although occupying no more than 5% of the planetary terrain, is responsible for the (re)organization of most of the 70% of the earth’s surface currently used by humankind. By introducing the concept of the ‘operational landscapes’, as the total system of specialized areas used for primary production, circulation and waste disposal, upon which dense agglomerations, or ‘agglomeration landscapes’, are dependent for their subsistence, the aim of this contribution is to reframe the dimensions of contemporary urbanization beyond agglomeration, and explore novel concepts, spatial categories and cartographies. Where does the horizontal metropolis end?
...
This essay aims to challenge the definition of the Horizontal Metropolis. It starts with an understanding of urbanization as a process of generalized geographical organization, where variegated forms of agglomerations (from the city to the metropolis and the various forms of post-metropolitan urbanization patterns) are only the focal points in the utilization of the whole earth by humans. The essay will try to investigate how the global system of agglomerations, although occupying no more than 5% of the planetary terrain, is responsible for the (re)organization of most of the 70% of the earth’s surface currently used by humankind. By introducing the concept of the ‘operational landscapes’, as the total system of specialized areas used for primary production, circulation and waste disposal, upon which dense agglomerations, or ‘agglomeration landscapes’, are dependent for their subsistence, the aim of this contribution is to reframe the dimensions of contemporary urbanization beyond agglomeration, and explore novel concepts, spatial categories and cartographies. Where does the horizontal metropolis end?