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| Predatory Urbanism: The Metabolism of Megaprojects in Asia Agatino Rizzo (with Anindita Mandal) |
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Rizzo, A. (2021). Predatory Urbanism: The Metabolism of Megaprojects in Asia (with Mandal, A.). Edward Elgar. https://www.elgaronline.com/view/9781800881068.xml
Book launch at the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2021 (videos)
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Synopsis
Resources in their various forms are at the basis of our urban economies. The extraction, alongside with the distribution, processing and disposal, of resources, being them natural, energy, or human, is a main driver for planetary urbanization. However, under a market-led economic regime, which is characterized by boom and bust cycles, the space produced by the resource-extraction economic model is from time to time discarded with huge environmental and social losses world wide.
"Predatory urbanism" is that condition by which tangible and intangible resource networks are cheaply exploited for the making of so-called competitive/attractive cities. Talking of predatory cities means studying the extended resource-urbanization nexus that underpins neoliberal city-making. Predatory urban making is not necessarily isolated, disconnected, and opportunistic but implies a relational connection, by virtue of tapping on the global production network of “cheap” resources, with other socially and environmentally troubled areas.
While recent concerns about climate change and urban resilience have emphasized resource efficiency i.e. consume less and use better each unit of resource, I think that this target alone isn't sufficient to truly transform society towards a more resilient horizon. We need to rethink the resource-urbanization nexus and the way it affects our lifestyle and cities. Therefore, smart cities and “green resilience” thinking does nothing to deal with the social and political aspects of human-nature exploitation at the planetary scale, i.e. where most of the Earth surface is affected by urban-led extraction processes of raw materials, goods, food, and human bodies for labor. Research shows that seldom smart experiments are able to transform society and their institutions
Tackling todays’ predatory "resource-urbanization nexus" means to go beyond periphery-centre or urban-rural or nature-human binaries and re-imagine society around the concept of resourcefulness. Resourceful communities are not only “ingenious, able, bright, talented, sharp, capable, creative, clever, imaginative, inventive, quick-witted” but are also communities that put the harnessing, caring, saving, and use of resources at the core of their civil statute. In my latest work I suggest resources in its various forms (natural and human) be intimately integrated with humanity and its built environment. To articulate such a vision, I am involved in a number of research projects that deal respectively with energy aesthetics and resource regions in Asia and Europe.
While recent concerns about climate change and urban resilience have emphasized resource efficiency i.e. consume less and use better each unit of resource, I think that this target alone isn't sufficient to truly transform society towards a more resilient horizon. We need to rethink the resource-urbanization nexus and the way it affects our lifestyle and cities. Therefore, smart cities and “green resilience” thinking does nothing to deal with the social and political aspects of human-nature exploitation at the planetary scale, i.e. where most of the Earth surface is affected by urban-led extraction processes of raw materials, goods, food, and human bodies for labor. Research shows that seldom smart experiments are able to transform society and their institutions
Tackling todays’ predatory "resource-urbanization nexus" means to go beyond periphery-centre or urban-rural or nature-human binaries and re-imagine society around the concept of resourcefulness. Resourceful communities are not only “ingenious, able, bright, talented, sharp, capable, creative, clever, imaginative, inventive, quick-witted” but are also communities that put the harnessing, caring, saving, and use of resources at the core of their civil statute. In my latest work I suggest resources in its various forms (natural and human) be intimately integrated with humanity and its built environment. To articulate such a vision, I am involved in a number of research projects that deal respectively with energy aesthetics and resource regions in Asia and Europe.
References to previous and ongoing work
Rizzo, A., Sjöholm, J., & Luciani, A. (2024). Smart (en) ing the Arctic city? The cases of Kiruna and Malmberget in Sweden. European Planning Studies, 32(1), 59-77.
Rizzo, A., & Petruccioli, A. (2023). Khalifa versus Prometheus: Green ethics and the struggle for contemporary sustainable urbanism. Digest of Middle East Studies. https://doi.org/10.1111/dome.12291
Rizzo, A. (2021). Rethinking Resilience: Towards Resourceful Communities. In Melis, A., Medas, B., Pievani, T. (eds.). Resilient Communities. Catalogue Italian Pavilion, Biennale di Architettura di Venezia, 96-101. ISBN: 978-8894830682 (Academia) (RG)
Rizzo, A. (2020). The limits of green resilience in urban planning: two
cases from the global South. Urban Studies (special issue). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098018812009
Rizzo, A., Sordi, J. (2020). Resources and Urbanization in the Global
Periphery: perspectives from urban and landscape studies. Cities: The
International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning. DOI:
10.1016/j.cities.2020.102647.
Rizzo, A., Ekelund, B., Bergström, J., Ek, K. (2020). Participatory
Design as a Tool to Create Resourceful Communities in Sweden. In C.
Smaniotto Costa, M. Mačiulienė, M. Menezes, B. Goličnik Marušić (Eds.),
Co-Creation of Public Open Places. Practice - Reflection - Learning,
Lusófona University Press, Lisbon, 95-107. DOI: 10.24140/2020-sct-vol.4-1.6.
Rizzo, A., 2019. Predatory cities: Unravelling the consequences of resource-predatory projects in the global South. Urban Geography, 40(1), pp.1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2018.1505156
