A steampunk city reimagined: exploring China's ecological civilization, human-nature relations and the future of urban sustainability

In this essay, brief reflections about cities, sustainability and civilization are presented. Taking the example of the Southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing that has been the starting point for many steampunk visions of a dystopian urban future that is dominated by technology, I argue that under the country’s vision for the Construction of an Ecological Civilization, as the next stage of development under Chinese socialism, the city presents an array of examples to reassess human-nature relations that, while making reference to philosophical and cultural roots, allow a rethinking of rural-urban relations that are present in the city’s development strategy that go far beyond the urban territory. I intend to show how a new understanding of our relation with technology and ecosystems will be necessary to achieve such a paradigm shift.