ABSTRACT
This chapter sketches the broad contours of a relationship between urban environments and the global environment, treating that relationship as a scalar process, describing the 'evolutionary co-constitution of physical, economic, and social worlds'. Specifically, I t recasts this process as an interaction between political economy and political ecology in two movements: the urban political ecology of global political economy and the global political ecology of urban political economy. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines brownfields as 'real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant'. The southwestern United States and, increasingly, the southeastern United States, are examples of this phenomenon, an ecological imperialism that shapes far-off landscapes by internalizing the benefits of distant resources. Effective governance of resource depletion and appropriation from far-flung and vulnerable landscapes requires the effective governance of urban metabolisms.
