Researcher(s):
Gabby Henrie
ENVS course(s): 400 Initiated: September 2014 Completed: May 2015 Go to project site
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Since the early 2000s, plans for dozens of multibillion dollar eco-city projects have sprung up across the globe. These cities, planned and built from the ground up, are often hailed as “green-prints” for a sustainable, urban future. But, what do they really do to address the environmental, social and economic difficulties the world is facing? This thesis situates the eco-city concept within a longer history of utopian urban planning, as well as dominant discourses on sustainability and green capitalism. Through a focused case study of Masdar City, I come to the following critique of eco-cities: (1) Social equity is largely ignored in their tripartite formulation of sustainability; (2) Under the guise of environmental protection, they reproduce neoliberal economic dynamics and exclusive socio-spatial organizations; (3) They aid in the construction of a post-political approach to sustainability, which is centered around the presumed inevitability of (green) capitalism as a solution to our collective environmental troubles. To conclude, I offer a few suggestions for a more utopian and repoliticized vision of sustainability.