Over-Urbanization? Ecologically Unequal Exchange in the Metabolism of the Stock-Based Urban and the Flow-Based Rural

This article investigates the urban-rural metabolism with a focus on ecologically unequal exchange and asymmetry between stock-based and flow-based economy. By approaching the question of how the matter-energetic metabolism of the urban effects the rural, the article finds a difference between the urban and the rural that is favouring the urban. We also make a case for ‘over-urbanization’ and claim it as a result of a historically uneven relation between the urban and the rural. Moreover, any economy aspiring to become sustainable must solve their unequal exchange of matter-energy between the stock based-urban and flow-based rural. As a practical contribution, we propose the over-urbanized economies to become less isolated from the rural not only conceptually, but also ecologically. This signifies engaging in the process of ‘re-ruralization’