ABSTRACT
This paper examines conflicts surrounding climate adaptation in Stuttgart, Germany, as a key process in the contemporary refiguration of urban spaces. It focuses on the technoscientific conceptualization and political mobilization of “fresh air corridors,” a specific climatological construct that redefines urban space as a heat ecology reliant on airflows and ventilation. By investigating urban conflicts over space in Stuttgart over the past 30 years, the paper identifies three types of spatial conflict related to these fresh air corridors: demonstrations, litigations, and controversies. Through an analysis of the actors involved in these conflicts and their stances on mobilizing these climatological constructs, we illuminate the figurational politics of climate adaptation. Despite differences among these conflict types, they all revolve around a common opposition between two modes of figuring urban space: One figures the city as a compact, bounded territory with internal homogeneity, while the other figures it as a zone intersected by various trajectories and flows that connect the urban core with spaces beyond its boundaries.
