As I read the articles for this week, I found myself reflecting on how these readings connect to my dissertation topic related to the ecological homogenization of cities. Beginning with Engels (1845), I noticed that as he described different locations, there seemed to be certain commonalities in terms of what the poor residents of these urban slums would experience. As he quotes the Artisan, “like all over rivers in the service of manufacture, flows into the city at one end clear and transparent, and flows at the other end thick, black, and foul, smelling of all possible refuse.” His accounts frequently include mentions of polluted water and air, and while these descriptions are increasingly historical as cities move away from being centers of industrialization and eco-legal protections are adopted, they serve as a shared communal urban-ecological history, with ripple effects to the present.

As Brenner (2013) notes, the conversation of climate change and the fate of the planet is intrinsically linked to the city with changes to the “atmosphere, biotic habitats, land-use surfaces, and oceanic conditions” (p. 86), and that the city extends well beyond its core, including commuters, tourists, teleworkers, and the media. The impacts of urban ecological homogenization extend farther from the center and become more encompassing. Lefebvre (1973) argues that natural space is gone and only represents the materials necessary for production and he finds this truth to be even more strongly so than in Marx’s time. From the perspective of Marxist political ecology, capitalism is the force that drives this ecological homogenization (perhaps with the lawn industry as a key example).

Even so, while creating such narratives, it is important to not view homogeneity when there exists diversity. Sandoval-Strausz (2014) notes the differences in Anglo and Hispanic lawn performativity. Drawing from distinct Euro-historical origins to cultural practice, Sandoval-Strausz describes how Latino families use their front lawn as a space of socialization and fence it off from the street. In contrast, Anglo families lack these fences, but instead socialize inside the house and the backyard. The capitalist forces that drive lawn culture would manifest quite differently depending on the cultural backgrounds of the families. Rather than conceptualizing a linear narrative of lawn culture being diffused to residents, instead it may be more useful to think about how these notions spread in round-about ways, being amended by culture, returned to origin for re-packaging, or being sent elsewhere in turn. Landscaping knowledge is not diffused simply in a unidirectional manner (Jacobs, 2012; Sandoval-Strausz, 2014).

-Christopher Ryan