meaning, questions could be raised. New discourses such as Landscape Urbanism and Ecological Urbanism are indeed radical regarding physical interventions, but one could state that its proponents are conservative when it comes to socioeconomic change. As Thompson notes, “One of the ironies of the ‘battle of the urbanisms’ is that New Urbanism and Landscape Urbanism are both uncritical of capitalist urbanisation and suspicious of governmental intervention” (Thompson 2012, 16). Moreover, the central position of the technique focusing on (pseudo)scientific rationales instead of socioeconomic problems/aspirations (might) instigate a transition to a populist stance within urbanism—a statement expressing one of the central concerns of this chapter related to arguments formulated within political ecology by academics such as Erik Swyngedouw:
An extraordinary techno-managerial apparatus is under way … with a view to producing a socio-ecological fix to make sure nothing really changes. Stabilizing the climate seems to be a condition for capitalist life as we know it to continue. (Swyngedouw 2010, 222)