ABSTRACT
Cities evolve through time just as species and ecosystems do. They do so by constantly interacting with their natural environment. This perspective on urban history is called “urban environmental history”, and it began with early 20th-century urbanists who tried to see cities as products of their regions. More recently, historians have examined the relation of cities to the “hinterlands”, areas that lie beyond the city boundaries, a spatial or geographical concept. But this chapter suggests that a better term – more dynamic and ecological – would be “bubbles”, which are variable physical shapes that grow and link urban economies to watersheds, agricultural fields, and natural resources and yet also can diminish or even pop (self-destruct). Cities seek supplies of food, water, and energy from their bubbles, but those supply lines are vulnerable to natural forces and human ignorance and misuse. Understanding these city-country relations as vital to human success, yet often highly vulnerable, as always shifting, sometimes catastrophically so, can provide a new perspective on urbanisation across the planet. Examples are drawn from North America and Eurasia to illustrate this perspective. We should no longer assume that cities can ignore their relationship to nature or achieve total, permanent control over the environment.
