Pub Date : 2026-03-19DOI: 10.1177/00420980261427557
Lukas Adolphi
The article examines the dialectics between more-than-human fertility and urban development, exploring the historical case of the Berlin sewage fields. In doing so, it contributes to more-than-human urban geographies in three ways. First, it points out a current move beyond the idea of “living cities” that foregrounds the biological and temporal edges of more-than-human life. Following this, the article discusses more-than-human fertility as a so far underexplored edge of life and conceptualizes it as spatiotemporal arrangement of both living beings and non-living materialities. Finally, it introduces the concept of urban fertilityscapes and applies it to the case of the Berlin sewage fields, which from the late 19th to the late 20th century combined wastewater disposal with agricultural nutrient (re)use. Drawing on a qualitative content analysis of archival documents and scientific literature, the article demonstrates how the Berlin fertilityscape unfolds across wastewater infrastructures, more-than-human metabolisms, political-economic rationalities and affective atmospheres. The findings reveal that fertilityscapes generate inherent tensions between imperatives to intensify production and the metabolic capacities of more-than-human arrangements, creating instability in which the becoming of life drives urban development just as forcefully as its non-becoming.
{"title":"Fertile cities: More-than-human fertility and the urban fertilityscapes of the Berlin sewage fields","authors":"Lukas Adolphi","doi":"10.1177/00420980261427557","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261427557","url":null,"abstract":"The article examines the dialectics between more-than-human fertility and urban development, exploring the historical case of the Berlin sewage fields. In doing so, it contributes to more-than-human urban geographies in three ways. First, it points out a current move beyond the idea of “living cities” that foregrounds the biological and temporal edges of more-than-human life. Following this, the article discusses more-than-human fertility as a so far underexplored edge of life and conceptualizes it as spatiotemporal arrangement of both living beings and non-living materialities. Finally, it introduces the concept of urban fertilityscapes and applies it to the case of the Berlin sewage fields, which from the late 19th to the late 20th century combined wastewater disposal with agricultural nutrient (re)use. Drawing on a qualitative content analysis of archival documents and scientific literature, the article demonstrates how the Berlin fertilityscape unfolds across wastewater infrastructures, more-than-human metabolisms, political-economic rationalities and affective atmospheres. The findings reveal that fertilityscapes generate inherent tensions between imperatives to intensify production and the metabolic capacities of more-than-human arrangements, creating instability in which the becoming of life drives urban development just as forcefully as its non-becoming.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147478237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-16DOI: 10.1177/00420980261424765
Seun Bamidele
Sacred land has long been a site of political power, spiritual significance, and contested urban transformation. Despite the enduring role of sacred places in shaping urban space, scholarly and policy attention has rarely examined the structural conditions through which sacred land governance has evolved from pre-colonial traditions to contemporary urbanization. This study foregrounds critical perspectives on the politics of the sacred to advance a framework for understanding how historical legacies, ritual authority, and shifting land governance practices intersect with urban development pressures. I trace the continuities and ruptures in sacred land governance across colonial and post-colonial periods, examining how chiefs, community members, and sacred custodians negotiate power, belonging, and access to land. I argue that the governance of sacred land constitutes both a terrain of exclusion and a potential arena for more inclusive urban futures, and that situating sacred land within broader urban and political-economic dynamics reveals its centrality to struggles over space, memory, and transformation.
{"title":"Historical transformations of sacred land and urbanization politics in Nigeria","authors":"Seun Bamidele","doi":"10.1177/00420980261424765","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261424765","url":null,"abstract":"Sacred land has long been a site of political power, spiritual significance, and contested urban transformation. Despite the enduring role of sacred places in shaping urban space, scholarly and policy attention has rarely examined the structural conditions through which sacred land governance has evolved from pre-colonial traditions to contemporary urbanization. This study foregrounds critical perspectives on the politics of the sacred to advance a framework for understanding how historical legacies, ritual authority, and shifting land governance practices intersect with urban development pressures. I trace the continuities and ruptures in sacred land governance across colonial and post-colonial periods, examining how chiefs, community members, and sacred custodians negotiate power, belonging, and access to land. I argue that the governance of sacred land constitutes both a terrain of exclusion and a potential arena for more inclusive urban futures, and that situating sacred land within broader urban and political-economic dynamics reveals its centrality to struggles over space, memory, and transformation.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"77 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147461942","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-16DOI: 10.1177/00420980261425513
Johanna Just
This article investigates more-than-human temporalities under urbanisation in the Upper Rhine Plain by tracing human-mosquito interactions. Drawing on historical documents and fieldwork, it examines how cohabitation is structured by shifting mosquito species and water management practices that reflect broader transformations in urban ecologies shaped by the intertwined rhythms of more-than-human life. Controlling water flows at different scales, from irrigated meadows to the Rhine straightening, reconfigured the amphibious landscape into habitable land, reducing the prevalence of fever mosquitoes. The resulting rise of floodwater mosquitoes, exacerbated by flood protection measures, necessitated continuous biological mosquito control in the increasingly urbanised alluvial plain. Most recently, climate change and global mobility have driven container-breeding Asian tiger mosquitoes into the metropolitan region, creating new tensions. Using the concept of milieu, the article explores how ecological and biological rhythms have been managed, regulated, and negotiated to enable cohabitation across time. It challenges the dominant linear narrative of the Rhine straightening and offers a more-than-human counter narrative of environmental change through mosquito control, landscape governance, and climate adaptation.
{"title":"Mosquito seasons: Tracing more-than-human cohabitation across an urbanising floodplain","authors":"Johanna Just","doi":"10.1177/00420980261425513","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261425513","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates more-than-human temporalities under urbanisation in the Upper Rhine Plain by tracing human-mosquito interactions. Drawing on historical documents and fieldwork, it examines how cohabitation is structured by shifting mosquito species and water management practices that reflect broader transformations in urban ecologies shaped by the intertwined rhythms of more-than-human life. Controlling water flows at different scales, from irrigated meadows to the Rhine straightening, reconfigured the amphibious landscape into habitable land, reducing the prevalence of fever mosquitoes. The resulting rise of floodwater mosquitoes, exacerbated by flood protection measures, necessitated continuous biological mosquito control in the increasingly urbanised alluvial plain. Most recently, climate change and global mobility have driven container-breeding Asian tiger mosquitoes into the metropolitan region, creating new tensions. Using the concept of milieu, the article explores how ecological and biological rhythms have been managed, regulated, and negotiated to enable cohabitation across time. It challenges the dominant linear narrative of the Rhine straightening and offers a more-than-human counter narrative of environmental change through mosquito control, landscape governance, and climate adaptation.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147462101","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-14DOI: 10.1177/00420980261419405
Yudi Liu
Critical transport studies view transport systems as socially constructed and politically situated, challenging the prevalent approach centered on technical efficiencies and utilities in transport research. However, existing approaches have not sufficiently emphasized the institutional path dependence and contingencies arising from historical decisions. This study addresses this gap by introducing historical institutionalism (HI) as a framework for interpreting institutional stability and changes in rail transit systems and transit-oriented development (TOD). HI reflects a scientific constructivist epistemology to explain the power dynamics and historical contingencies underlying institutions. It complements existing lenses that focus on historical details, class relations, or everyday situations. An HI analysis of Tokyo illustrates how path dependence and contingent decisions preserve and reinforce a globally rare institution that encourages private rail transit entities to profit from non-transport businesses. This institution permits land speculation and underserves less populous areas because it expects rail entities to be self-financed through profits rather than relying on subsidies. Its continuous reinforcement has led policymakers and the public to take it for granted and rarely consider alternatives. Such HI insights allow transport research to critically understand how policies stabilize, change, and diverge, thereby informing theories and policymaking.
{"title":"Historical institutionalism for critical transport studies: The politics of private railways in Tokyo","authors":"Yudi Liu","doi":"10.1177/00420980261419405","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261419405","url":null,"abstract":"Critical transport studies view transport systems as socially constructed and politically situated, challenging the prevalent approach centered on technical efficiencies and utilities in transport research. However, existing approaches have not sufficiently emphasized the institutional path dependence and contingencies arising from historical decisions. This study addresses this gap by introducing historical institutionalism (HI) as a framework for interpreting institutional stability and changes in rail transit systems and transit-oriented development (TOD). HI reflects a scientific constructivist epistemology to explain the power dynamics and historical contingencies underlying institutions. It complements existing lenses that focus on historical details, class relations, or everyday situations. An HI analysis of Tokyo illustrates how path dependence and contingent decisions preserve and reinforce a globally rare institution that encourages private rail transit entities to profit from non-transport businesses. This institution permits land speculation and underserves less populous areas because it expects rail entities to be self-financed through profits rather than relying on subsidies. Its continuous reinforcement has led policymakers and the public to take it for granted and rarely consider alternatives. Such HI insights allow transport research to critically understand how policies stabilize, change, and diverge, thereby informing theories and policymaking.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147454635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-14DOI: 10.1177/00420980261420073
Ichiro Watanabe, Chie Koga, Hideki Koizumi
This study examines the spatial relationship between cultural activities, particularly art events, and the distribution of corporate headquarters within Tokyo’s 23 special wards. To this end, we employ the Wasserstein distance and Monte Carlo simulations with stratified sampling to statistically assess the spatial proximity between art events and the headquarters of large firms at different stages of their corporate life cycles. The analysis reveals that firms facing strategic uncertainty and a need for new ideas and innovation tend to locate their headquarters closer to areas with a strong cultural sense of place and frequent art events. In contrast, the firms focusing on stability and operational efficiency are more likely to locate their headquarters farther from cultural activities. These findings offer new insights into the synergies between cultural and economic activities at the neighborhood level, thereby addressing a gap in urban economic geography. Moreover, they suggest that urban planning can foster mutually beneficial environments for both corporate innovation and local cultural engagement by supporting the colocalization of art events and businesses in stages that require creativity.
{"title":"Cultural activities and corporate geography in a city: Investigating the synergies between art events and corporate headquarters in Tokyo","authors":"Ichiro Watanabe, Chie Koga, Hideki Koizumi","doi":"10.1177/00420980261420073","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261420073","url":null,"abstract":"This study examines the spatial relationship between cultural activities, particularly art events, and the distribution of corporate headquarters within Tokyo’s 23 special wards. To this end, we employ the Wasserstein distance and Monte Carlo simulations with stratified sampling to statistically assess the spatial proximity between art events and the headquarters of large firms at different stages of their corporate life cycles. The analysis reveals that firms facing strategic uncertainty and a need for new ideas and innovation tend to locate their headquarters closer to areas with a strong cultural sense of place and frequent art events. In contrast, the firms focusing on stability and operational efficiency are more likely to locate their headquarters farther from cultural activities. These findings offer new insights into the synergies between cultural and economic activities at the neighborhood level, thereby addressing a gap in urban economic geography. Moreover, they suggest that urban planning can foster mutually beneficial environments for both corporate innovation and local cultural engagement by supporting the colocalization of art events and businesses in stages that require creativity.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147454636","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-12DOI: 10.1177/00420980261431609
Adam Auerbach
{"title":"Book review: Slow Harms and Citizen Action: Environmental Degradation and Policy Change in Latin American Cities HerreraVeronica, Slow Harms and Citizen Action: Environmental Degradation and Policy Change in Latin American Cities, Oxford University Press: New York, 2024. p. 272. ISBN: 9780197669037.","authors":"Adam Auerbach","doi":"10.1177/00420980261431609","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261431609","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"79 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147454641","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-12DOI: 10.1177/00420980261419975
Matthew Palm, Alainna Thomas
This paper examines how equity claims were mobilized in the public debate over New York City’s Central Business District Tolling Program (CBDTP). We analyze approximately 8300 public comments submitted during the environmental review and use large language models (LLMs) for stance/equity classification followed by structural topic modeling to surface latent themes. Proponents’ equity arguments clustered around a compact set of frames: drivers paying their fair share, non-drivers reclaiming public space and road safety, air-quality improvements, and benefits to transit riders. Opponents advanced more varied arguments, ranging from fee regressivity and affordability pressures to distrust in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s management. Many opponents framed the fee as inequitable where driving is not discretionary—for example, medical/disability trips, off-peak and emergency workers with equipment, and contexts with unsafe or unreliable transit. These objections reflect Sandel’s critique of the market society, where willingness to pay (WTP) is mistaken for value, while ability to pay is overlooked. We extend this insight to transportation by highlighting unequal abilities to avoid paying. Even in New York, many commenters characterized the toll as an unavoidable levy. Congestion pricing’s legitimacy may depend not just on distributional effects, but also on whether payment is experienced as a genuine choice. Public comments reveal the enduring relevance of two choice-enhancing strategies in the literature: funding new mobility options for those who cannot pay, or preserving non-tolled alternatives for those who would rather wait than pay. If these concerns are being raised in New York, they are likely to dominate debate elsewhere in North America.
{"title":"Americans meet congestion pricing: Reframing the equity debate around CBD tolling for auto-dependent countries","authors":"Matthew Palm, Alainna Thomas","doi":"10.1177/00420980261419975","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261419975","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines how equity claims were mobilized in the public debate over New York City’s Central Business District Tolling Program (CBDTP). We analyze approximately 8300 public comments submitted during the environmental review and use large language models (LLMs) for stance/equity classification followed by structural topic modeling to surface latent themes. Proponents’ equity arguments clustered around a compact set of frames: drivers paying their fair share, non-drivers reclaiming public space and road safety, air-quality improvements, and benefits to transit riders. Opponents advanced more varied arguments, ranging from fee regressivity and affordability pressures to distrust in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s management. Many opponents framed the fee as inequitable where driving is not discretionary—for example, medical/disability trips, off-peak and emergency workers with equipment, and contexts with unsafe or unreliable transit. These objections reflect Sandel’s critique of the market society, where willingness to pay (WTP) is mistaken for value, while ability to pay is overlooked. We extend this insight to transportation by highlighting unequal abilities to avoid paying. Even in New York, many commenters characterized the toll as an unavoidable levy. Congestion pricing’s legitimacy may depend not just on distributional effects, but also on whether payment is experienced as a genuine choice. Public comments reveal the enduring relevance of two choice-enhancing strategies in the literature: funding new mobility options for those who cannot pay, or preserving non-tolled alternatives for those who would rather wait than pay. If these concerns are being raised in New York, they are likely to dominate debate elsewhere in North America.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147454639","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-11DOI: 10.1177/00420980261417604
Itai Beeri
How do emotional responses associate with urban behavior amid ecological and political disruption? This study explores the emotional, cognitive, and institutional factors associated with urban reactive behavioral intentions during escalating human–wildlife encounters, focusing on wild boars in Haifa, Israel. Using a large-scale survey with visual stimuli designed to evoke emotional responses, we elicited emotions—fear versus empathy and indifference versus curiosity—and measured two outcomes: immediate spatial response and civic reporting (calls to the municipal 106 hotline). Findings show that fear mediates the link between perceived harm and urban reactions, while curiosity and perceived good local governance moderate this relationship. Curiosity, unexpectedly, amplified both fear and behavioral intentions response. Perceived good governance mitigated physical expressions of fear in public space but had limited impact on civic reporting. Emotional responses also shifted depending on visual framing, emphasizing the role of public communication. This research advances understanding of emotional infrastructure in cities and informs adaptive urban governance by linking environmental risk, emotion, and institutional trust.
{"title":"Emotions in the city? Emotional responses to urban wildlife and their association with urban reactive behavioral intentions during environmental and political crisis","authors":"Itai Beeri","doi":"10.1177/00420980261417604","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261417604","url":null,"abstract":"How do emotional responses associate with urban behavior amid ecological and political disruption? This study explores the emotional, cognitive, and institutional factors associated with urban reactive behavioral intentions during escalating human–wildlife encounters, focusing on wild boars in Haifa, Israel. Using a large-scale survey with visual stimuli designed to evoke emotional responses, we elicited emotions—fear versus empathy and indifference versus curiosity—and measured two outcomes: immediate spatial response and civic reporting (calls to the municipal 106 hotline). Findings show that fear mediates the link between perceived harm and urban reactions, while curiosity and perceived good local governance moderate this relationship. Curiosity, unexpectedly, amplified both fear and behavioral intentions response. Perceived good governance mitigated physical expressions of fear in public space but had limited impact on civic reporting. Emotional responses also shifted depending on visual framing, emphasizing the role of public communication. This research advances understanding of emotional infrastructure in cities and informs adaptive urban governance by linking environmental risk, emotion, and institutional trust.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147393232","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-11DOI: 10.1177/00420980261419982
Sara Mengato, Annegret Haase
Urban greening has become a central pillar of contemporary sustainability agendas, promoted for its contributions to environmental performance, climate resilience and quality of life. Yet critical research shows that these interventions often generate inequitable outcomes: producing exclusions, displacement and affordability pressures that contradict their inclusive sustainability rhetoric. As a conceptual debate contribution, this article offers a framework for understanding what we term the urban greening paradox: a structural tension between the universalist values of sustainability and the neoliberal policy logics through which greening is implemented. Drawing on scholarship in urban political ecology, we identify three dimensions through which the paradox materialises: the universalisation of greening benefits that obscures inequalities; land-use and housing policy practices that reinforce real-estate valorisation; and the power relations embedded in participatory processes and their exclusionary effects. Building on this analysis, the article advances three propositions: (i) the inequities associated with urban greening are endogenous to market-led urban governance rather than implementation failures; (ii) the paradox extends beyond greening to wider climate, smart and sustainability agendas, including climate adaptation and resilience strategies, where ecological goals are pursued through neoliberal instruments; and (iii) addressing these contradictions requires ex-ante, equity-orientated planning tools that embed redistribution and recognition from the outset. By systematising dispersed insights across urban greening and climate debates, the article provides an original conceptualisation of the paradox and argues that anticipating and mitigating it demands justice-sensitive governance frameworks capable of confronting, rather than reproducing, the structural conditions shaping sustainability policy.
{"title":"Greening cities while feeding injustices? Discussing the urban greening paradox","authors":"Sara Mengato, Annegret Haase","doi":"10.1177/00420980261419982","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261419982","url":null,"abstract":"Urban greening has become a central pillar of contemporary sustainability agendas, promoted for its contributions to environmental performance, climate resilience and quality of life. Yet critical research shows that these interventions often generate inequitable outcomes: producing exclusions, displacement and affordability pressures that contradict their inclusive sustainability rhetoric. As a conceptual debate contribution, this article offers a framework for understanding what we term the <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">urban greening paradox:</jats:italic> a structural tension between the universalist values of sustainability and the neoliberal policy logics through which greening is implemented. Drawing on scholarship in urban political ecology, we identify three dimensions through which the paradox materialises: the universalisation of greening benefits that obscures inequalities; land-use and housing policy practices that reinforce real-estate valorisation; and the power relations embedded in participatory processes and their exclusionary effects. Building on this analysis, the article advances three propositions: (i) the inequities associated with urban greening are endogenous to market-led urban governance rather than implementation failures; (ii) the paradox extends beyond greening to wider climate, smart and sustainability agendas, including climate adaptation and resilience strategies, where ecological goals are pursued through neoliberal instruments; and (iii) addressing these contradictions requires ex-ante, equity-orientated planning tools that embed redistribution and recognition from the outset. By systematising dispersed insights across urban greening and climate debates, the article provides an original conceptualisation of the paradox and argues that anticipating and mitigating it demands justice-sensitive governance frameworks capable of confronting, rather than reproducing, the structural conditions shaping sustainability policy.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"56 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147393229","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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