Beyond the operational landscape

Abstract

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.