Environmental Philosophy in the City: Confronting the antiurban bias to overcome the human-nature divide

Environmental ethics and environmental philosophy have traditionally focused on the human relationship to the natural world with an antiurban bias, often treating the human relationship to the world as an inherently destructive or alienated one. Given that over 50 percent of the world’s population lives within urban environments, it is paramount that environmental philosophy develops understanding and analytical treatment of urban systems that do not make this assumption. I discuss potential new directions based upon trends in the field that engage the full spectrum of human dynamics with nonhuman entities: urban land ethics, comparative philosophy and cultural diversity, environmental justice, animals in the city, alienation, and technological mediation. I end with a discussion of what urban environmental philosophy could potentially look like when overcoming antiurban bias.