Bioregionalism and Degrowth Addressing the Urban-Other Divide

Scale and spatial politics are central to degrowth research, yet scholars often overemphasise the (limited) potential of local practices. This paper proposes a bioregional spatial planning approach that addresses the ‘urban-other’ divide – the political process that defines a space as intrinsically alien and inferior to the city – without falling into localist biases. Building on bioregionalist thought, we propose five dimensions for degrowth spatial planning and identify their implications for planning theory and practice: the regional scale of socio-metabolic relations, socio-spatial organization for sufficiency, cooperative geopolitical relations through polycentric networks, a regenerative approach to ecology, and a post-humanist worldview in spatial planning.