Which best describes Hinchliffe et al.'s view on urban life?

• A. Cities exclude non-human life from shaping urban spaces.
• B. Urban nature is static and predictable.
• C. The human is the only actor in urban ecology.
• D. Cities include diverse non-human life forms shaping urban environments; cosmopolitical approach.

Answer: (D)

Urban life, for Hinchliffe and colleagues, is entangled with a variety of non-human life forms that actively shape how cities function and how urban spaces are governed. They push a cosmopolitical view in which diverse beings—plants, animals, microbes, and other ecological processes—are agents in urban politics and design, influencing outcomes and power relations. So describing cities as including diverse non-human life forms that shape urban environments aligns exactly with that perspective. The other ideas—that non-human life is kept out of shaping cities, that urban nature is static, or that humans are the only actors—don’t fit because they ignore the dynamic, multispecies, process-oriented view this approach emphasizes.