Urban environmental history

Abstract

Urban societies, as multispecies entities, are shaped by the negotiation of environmental actors. This chapter adds to that broadening and seeks to give an overview of the main debates of urban environmental history from a global, deep-historical perspective. Such an approach challenges a singular modernization narrative of cities' impact on natural environments. This narrative entails, somewhat paradoxically, a story of technological progress and modernization, and of ecological decline and degradation. The comparatively nascent state of premodern urban environmental history and the rarity of exchanges between scholars working on modern and premodern histories sometimes lead to a false dichotomy in which premodern cities are perceived as more "organic" or sustainably rooted in their environments than modern ones. Looking at urban metabolisms in a global, long-term perspective reveals striking parallels in how urban societies have addressed environmental risks by managing local air, waters, and landscapes.