Topic description / abstract:

Across the global South, cities are on a breakneck path to growth. Cities are engines of prosperity and promise, but also concentrations of pollution, stress, and disease. Episodes of flood, drought, heat waves, and smog tell us why we must begin to think ecologically about a new global urban future, which will be driven by cities of the global South. I draw on research from Bengaluru and other cities in India, to discuss how human populations have transformed the original ecology of the city beyond recognition. We cannot go back to the ecology of the past, but must instead look at the role that ecology plays in the lives of contemporary and future cities to collectively reimagine and redesign a better urban future.