Book contents
- The Cambridge Urban History of Europe
- The Cambridge Urban History of Europe
- Modern and Contemporary Europe
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Contributors to Volume III
- Acknowledgements
- Editors’ Introduction to the Series
- Additional material
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Urban History: The Growth and Internationalisation of an Interdisciplinary Field
- Part I Regions and Global Connections
- Part II Themes
- Index
- References
22 - (Un)Covering the Ground: Urban Ecologies of Soils and Plants
from The Urban Fabric and Environment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 January 2026
Book contents
- The Cambridge Urban History of Europe
- The Cambridge Urban History of Europe
- Modern and Contemporary Europe
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Contributors to Volume III
- Acknowledgements
- Editors’ Introduction to the Series
- Additional material
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Urban History: The Growth and Internationalisation of an Interdisciplinary Field
- Part I Regions and Global Connections
- Part II Themes
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter highlights changes in the relationship between humans and the urban environment by revealing the negotiations and tensions regarding the sealing and unsealing of urban soils and surfaces; organic waste removal and recycling; the use of ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ soils; spontaneous plant growth and plant cultivation; as well as urbanisation, biodiversity and nature conservation. In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, industrialisation both reinforced and blurred the separation and distinction between urban and rural, city and landscape, centre and periphery. It also produced novel hybrid ecologies which might be called nature-cultures; ecologies in which cities were naturalised and nature was urbanised.
Keywords
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Urban History of Europe , pp. 453 - 471Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
References
Further Reading
Clark, P., Niemi, M. and Nolin, C. (eds), Green Landscapes in the European City (London, Routledge, 2017).Google Scholar
Dümpelmann, S., Seeing Trees: A History of Street Trees in New York City and Berlin (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2019).Google Scholar
Gandy, M., Natura Urbana: Ecological Constellations in Urban Space (Cambridge MA, MIT Press, 2022).10.7551/mitpress/10658.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haffner, J. (ed.), Landscapes of Housing: Design and Planning in the History of Environmental Thought (Abingdon, Routledge, 2022).Google Scholar
Haumann, S., Knoll, M. and Mares, D. (eds), Concepts of Urban-Environmental History (Bielefeld, Transcript, 2020).Google Scholar
Hunt, J. D. (ed.), A Cultural History of Gardens in the Modern Age (London, Bloomsbury, 2013).10.5040/9781350048119CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lachmund, J., Greening Berlin: The Co-Production of Science, Politics, and Urban Nature (Cambridge MA, MIT Press, 2013).10.7551/mitpress/9159.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luckin, B. and Thornsheim, P., A Mighty Capital: An Environmental History of London: 1800–2000 (Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020).Google Scholar
Luckin, B., Massard-Guilbaud, G. and Schott, D. (eds), Resources of the City: Contributions to an Environmental History of Modern Europe (Abingdon, Routledge, 2005).Google Scholar
Nielsen, M., The Working Man’s Green Space: Allotment Gardens in England, France, and Germany, 1870–1919 (Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 2014).10.2307/j.ctt6wrkm8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salazar, J. F., Granjou, C., Kearnes, M., Krzywoszynska, A. and Tironi, M. (eds), Thinking with Soils: Material Politics and Social Theory (London, Bloomsbury, 2020).10.5040/9781350109568CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woudstra, J. and Allen, C. (eds), The Politics of Street Trees (Abingdon, Routledge, 2022).10.4324/9781003054672CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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