Metabolisms of Obe-city : flows of fat through bodies, sewers and cities.

Marvin, Simon and Medd, Will (2006) Metabolisms of Obe-city : flows of fat through bodies, sewers and cities. Environment and Planning A, 38 (2). pp. 313-324. ISSN 0308-518X

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Abstract

Although strategies to tackle obesity have led to renewed debate about the relationship between the body and urban form the (im)mobilities of fat through bodies, cities, and infrastructure reveal a complex web of urban metabolisms. We argue that, to understand the mobilities of fat in a city context, metaphors of urban metabolism become important. The relationships between different flows are contingent and the mobilities of fat in bodies (as individuals), cities (as a collective site of action), and sewers (as infrastructure), we argue, highlight a multiplicity of urban metabolisms, each with different interconnectivities and forms of instability. In the paper we show how, in North America, in response to the rising numbers of �obese bodies� there has been the mobilisation of the concept of �fat cities�, involving renewed debate about the relationship between bodies and the city, provoked largely by the innovative representations of Men�s Fitness magazine. However, we shift focus to highlight the problems of fat in infrastructure, focusing specifically on the experience in US cities of sewer blockages that reveal quite different sets of processes within which fat is embedded. Strategies of intervention at the level of the body, the city collective, and the sewer involve prevention, removal, and acceptance, each revealing a multiplicity of metabolisms as well as the partial interconnections between them.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Environment and Planning A
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2300/2301
Subjects:
?? mobilitiespolitical economyobesitypolitical ecologysocio-technical systemsenvironmental science (miscellaneous)geography, planning and developmentg geography (general) ??
ID Code:
404
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
05 Feb 2007
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
15 Jul 2024 11:20