Papers by Erik Swyngedouw
Water and Sanitation Services, 2012
Territory, Politics, Governance, 2016
Amsterdam Zuidas: European Space. Rotterdam, 2005
Social Power and the Urbanization of Water
The problems outlined in the previous chapter evolve from particular historical political ecologi... more The problems outlined in the previous chapter evolve from particular historical political ecological processes. As the urbanization process is predicated upon the mastering and engineering of nature’s water, the ecological conquest of water is an integral part of the expansion and growth of the city. At the same time, the capital required to build and expand the urban landscape is itself, at least in the case of Guayaquil, generated through the political ecological transformation of the city’s hinterland. In this and the following chapters, we shall explore the historical dynamics of the urbanization process through the lens of this double ecological conquest. The city’s growth created the need for water systems, which stretched further and further from the city in order to tap additional water resources. Foreign capital had to be generated to finance the imported technology of these projects. This necessitated a sound export-based economy, initially driven by cocoa (until the early...
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Papers by Erik Swyngedouw