Nature's Past Episode 019: Metropolitanism and Environmental History

dc.contributor.authorKheraj, Sean
dc.date.accessioned2022-02-02T00:51:08Z
dc.date.available2022-02-02T00:51:08Z
dc.date.issued2011-01-24
dc.descriptionIn 1954, Canadian historian James Maurice Stockford Careless published an influential article in the Canadian Historical Review, titled “Frontierism, Metropolitanism, and Canadian History” which offered a new approach for understanding the course of Canadian history and the development of the Canadian nation-state. Instead of adopting the US model of a Frontier Thesis, which saw the expansion and development of the United States connected directly to the extension of a westward settlement frontier, Careless proposed a different model based on a Metropolitan Thesis which understood the development of the Canadian nation-state as a function of the interconnections between metropolitan centres and their regional hinterlands. Under this model for understanding Canadian history, the contours of the country’s expansion were determined not by a continuous line of frontier settlement but instead by the radial expansion of urban influence on rural hinterlands. Careless’s notion of metropolitanism has since played a significant role in environmental history research, most prominently in the work of William Cronon in Nature’s Metropolis and other works in urban environmental history. Borrowing from Careless, this research examines the urban environment in its relationship to rural hinterlands, extending our understanding of the meaning of urban environments beyond the municipal boundaries. The exploitation of natural resources in distant hinterland regions in North America, as far as the northern reaches of the Canada, has in some fashion been influenced by urban consumer demands. Cities consume more resources than their physical footprint can supply and, therefore, they rely upon drawing in resources from an extended hinterland region. As such, metropolitanism as an approach to understanding the interconnection between cities and hinterlands has been quite influential in environmental history. On this episode of the podcast, three prominent Canadian environmental history scholars debate the role of metropolitanism in environmental history research.en_US
dc.description.abstractIn 1954, Canadian historian James Maurice Stockford Careless published an influential article in the Canadian Historical Review, titled “Frontierism, Metropolitanism, and Canadian History” which offered a new approach for understanding the course of Canadian history and the development of the Canadian nation-state. Instead of adopting the US model of a Frontier Thesis, which saw the expansion and development of the United States connected directly to the extension of a westward settlement frontier, Careless proposed a different model based on a Metropolitan Thesis which understood the development of the Canadian nation-state as a function of the interconnections between metropolitan centres and their regional hinterlands. Under this model for understanding Canadian history, the contours of the country’s expansion were determined not by a continuous line of frontier settlement but instead by the radial expansion of urban influence on rural hinterlands. Careless’s notion of metropolitanism has since played a significant role in environmental history research, most prominently in the work of William Cronon in Nature’s Metropolis and other works in urban environmental history. Borrowing from Careless, this research examines the urban environment in its relationship to rural hinterlands, extending our understanding of the meaning of urban environments beyond the municipal boundaries. The exploitation of natural resources in distant hinterland regions in North America, as far as the northern reaches of the Canada, has in some fashion been influenced by urban consumer demands. Cities consume more resources than their physical footprint can supply and, therefore, they rely upon drawing in resources from an extended hinterland region. As such, metropolitanism as an approach to understanding the interconnection between cities and hinterlands has been quite influential in environmental history. On this episode of the podcast, three prominent Canadian environmental history scholars debate the role of metropolitanism in environmental history research.en_US
dc.identifier.citationKheraj, Sean. “Episode 19: Metropolitanism and Environmental History” Nature’s Past: Canadian Environmental History Podcast. 24 January 2011.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/38949
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherNetwork in Canadian History and Environmenten_US
dc.rightsAttribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International*
dc.rights.publisherhttps://niche-canada.org/2011/01/24/natures-past-episode-19-metropolitanism-and-environmental-history/en_US
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/*
dc.subjectNature's pasten_US
dc.subjectmetropolitanismen_US
dc.titleNature's Past Episode 019: Metropolitanism and Environmental Historyen_US
dc.typeRecording, oralen_US

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