ABSTRACT
The rapid melting of the sea ice and permafrost due to climate change, together with the accelerating flux and dynamic changes to the social and ecological landscapes of the Arctic, have exacerbated a rush to claim and enclose resources that have been locked away under the tundra landscape. The landscapes of extraction, mobility, and communication that are necessitated by this expansionist logic represent a specific form of urbanization in the region which has for the most part escaped the typical population-centric reading of urban landscapes. This chapter argues that the traditional understandings of urbanization do not reflect the specificity and intricacy of urban forms and processes in the Arctic. This is followed by a critical exploration of the emerging operational landscapes of urbanization in the region which challenge the traditional dichotomies of urban/nonurban and city/periphery that have long dominated urban discourse. This piece ultimately positions the communication apparatus, mobility infrastructures, and the extraction practices of the Arctic in direct relationship to planetary urbanization processes and modernization efforts of central authorities in the south. This new infrastructural conception of urbanization in the Arctic will allow for a more nuanced analysis of both extended and concentrated moments of urbanization in the region and beyond.
