‘Ecologizing’ Urban Planning. The sustainable city in between government and activism (1989 – 2019)

Contemporary academic debates on urban ecology often ignore the role of activist groups in the creation of sustainable forms of urbanism. In addition, existing literature downplays the role that ecology has in the struggle of these citizen’s groups against governmental planning. In critical theory, ecology is staged as a tool in the hands of governmental actors, imposing technical planning solutions to socio-ecological questions. This postdoctoral project opposes these generalizations by diving into the recent history of environmental planning in Brussels, a city and region which was greatly influenced by its counter-planning, activist groups. Through in-debt archival research, design analysis and oral history, the project will try to understand how a social perspective on ecological urbanism can be created through the political action of citizens. An analysis of the interaction between government, activism and the design of ecological networks and parcs therefore sheds new light on the way ecology and ecological discourses were used in the creation of a socio-ecological urban regime.

Keywords:Ecological urbanism, Civil activism, Participation, Planning History, Urban Political Ecology

Disciplines:Landscape architecture sciences and technology, Environmental and sustainable planning, Urbanism and regional planning, Landscape and ecological history, Urban and regional planning policy, instruments and legislation, Ecology not elsewhere classified