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Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2023

Of planners, workers and activists. A short history of urban soil cultures (Europe and North America)

Résumé

In the Global North, urban environments are often seen as antagonistic to soil. In contrast to the living soil perspective of soil scientists, most city specialists see the urban soil as a two-dimensional abstract ground, the space between buildings. However, since the industrial revolution, the question of soil-city relations has generated numerous debates and radical proposals for the reorganisation of urban life and settlement. This chapter addresses the tumultuous relations between soils and cities in the Global North since the 19th century, and reviews some of the main forms, reasons and motivations that have driven attempts to rethink links between soils and cities. The first part of the chapter concentrates on how industrial and urban revolutions radically transformed urban relationships to soils in Europe. It shows how new production and consumption practices initiated a series of material, social and symbolic separations between city and countryside, which resulted in soils and nature being relegated to the background, to the status of virgin space or dumping ground. The second part of the chapter examines historical and contemporary urban planning to reweave links between soils and the city, as much on a symbolic level – the "connection with nature" – as on alimentary purposes or functional and ecological aspects – sanitation, fertilization, and other so-called "ecosystem services" rendered by soil. The third part of the chapter turns to the history of urban gardening movements, which in cities of the Global North have sought to respond to the ills generated by urbanization and the alienation of agricultural soils. Through the theme of urban gardening, soils and their cultivation have been at the heart of grassroots social movements, associated with hopes of emancipation of the working or disadvantaged classes - a history that helps to take a measure of perspective on the contemporary renewal of attention to urban soils.
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Dates et versions

hal-04291114 , version 1 (17-11-2023)

Identifiants

Citer

Germain Meulemans. Of planners, workers and activists. A short history of urban soil cultures (Europe and North America). Patzel, Nikola; Grunwald, Sabine; Brevik, Erik C.; Feller, Christian. Cultural Understanding of Soils, Springer, pp.283-300, 2023, 978-3-031-13168-4. ⟨10.1007/978-3-031-13169-1_14⟩. ⟨hal-04291114⟩
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