A NiCHE/Metropole Blog Series

Proposal Deadline: October 24, 2025

Draft Deadline: December 1, 2025

Series Publication: January/February 2025

The Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE) and The Metropole – The Official Blog of the Urban History Association are soliciting submissions for Urban and Environmental Dialogues, a series that will explore how the environment-at-large and the urban built environment have shaped one another throughout history. 

Over the past sixty years, scholarly studies and community activism have worked diligently to break down the artificial separation between humanity and planetary processes and activities. Nevertheless, the belief persists that urban humanity is separable from nature, or even defined by its oppositional relationship to nature.

Today, more than half of the world’s population of eight billion-plus people live in urban environments. By highlighting the interrelationship between the built and the naturally occurring, Urban and Environmental Dialogues will celebrate, challenge, reinforce, and add insight to the city’s ecological role within the environment.

We invite blog posts in the range of 800 to 1,200 words. Authors should provide one high quality header image (minimum 1024 px wide) with their first draft. Ideally, authors will also provide an additional 1-2 other relevant images  and/or other media (audio, video, etc.) free of copyright issues.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• How cities consume and conserve natural resources
• How technology has shaped urban populations’ relationship to nature
• Integrating flora, fauna, and other environmental phenomena into urban life
• How cities memorialize lost nature and natural disasters
• New and traditional urban practices for navigating climate change
• Wilderness, parks, gardens, and other gradations of nature in and adjacent to cities

Prospective authors are encouraged to submit 150-250 word proposals by October 24th using THIS GOOGLE FORM. Proposals will be reviewed by staff at NiCHE and The Metropole. Accepted posts will be published simultaneously on NiCHE and The Metropole in early 2026. Contributors will receive a small honorarium.

For further inquiries, please contact Katie Uva at katieuva@gmail.com

Featured image (at top): Sorrento Italy at night, Ryan Reft, photographer, September 2025.