The role for the UPE project in Australia
Abstract: This paper will reflect on the international experience of the Urban Political Ecology (UPE) project and draw insights in particular from the Australian experience. UPE is an emerging body of work responding to the increasing need for just socio-ecological conditions in our cities. UPE to date has been strong in both Europe and the USA, being driven in particular through the work of key scholars including Swyngedouw and Heynen. The UPE project has been given little attention in Australia, despite rare exceptions such as Vortex Cities by McManus and Lifeboat Cities by Gleeson. UPE is a strongly emerging international project which considers justice, nature and urban life. Its progressive thinking about the urban environment represents heightened concern about the consequences of the uneven distribution of wealth in all forms inherent in neoliberal urbanism. UPE is therefore a catalyst for a more thoughtful understanding of socio-ecological urbanisation. The nature of the social and environmental dimensions are given increased emphasis in the progressive politics of urban development, including concepts such as collective consumption and increased interest in environmental equity, protection and reparation.
