Resonances of planetarity and commons within evolving urbanisms URN:NBN:fi:tsv-oa148026 DOI: 10.11143/fennia.148026 Resonances of planetarity and commons within evolving urbanisms TARMO PIKNER Pikner, J. (2024) Resonances of planetarity and commons within evolving urbanisms. Fennia 202(2) 286-298. https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.148026 This essay explores urbanism in relation to earthly and planetary concerns as relational processes in which the roles of humans and the sustaining of life forms are negotiated and transformed. The guiding question is: how do urbanites resonate with significant environmental matters while intersecting diverse disturbances, commons, and anticipated futures? The resonances of the planetary within urban change are examined through three vignettes about coastal assemblages involving waste, birds, and energy. These vignettes, related to the Baltic Sea and its diverse publics, illustrate how urbanisation interacts with voluminous spaces and emergent commons. The essay highlights urban- environmental entanglements in which contested ideologies of nature and care reshape understandings of environmental problems and solutions alongside significant changes in urbanism. Some zones of ignorance are extensively exploited in future transformations, yet these zones could also be transformed into spaces of nature-culture care and commons, pointing toward conviviality. Keywords: planetarity, urbanism, commons, resonance, Baltic Sea Tarmo Pikner (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1270-3224), Centre for Landscape and Culture, School of Humanities, Tallinn University, Estonia. E-Mail: tpikner@tlu.ee © 2024 by the author. This open access article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Introduction The shift from a global perspective to planetary entanglements of urban life brings ethical relations to Earth or Gaia into focus. The Anthropocene forces a critical analysis of human positioning and the human-built cities often seen as the pinnacle of civilisation. The growth of cities, industrialisation, and human-driven impacts on Earth are undeniably interconnected. Cities can be seen as parasites, extending their reach toward distant resources (Ruddick 2015), while also touted as solutions to the climate crisis through green and dense urbanism (Angelo & Wachsmuth 2020). Expanding urbanisation reveals interconnections between cities, rural areas, marine spaces, and underground resources. However, beyond infrastructure, urban spaces also serve as arenas for negotiating values and coexistence on Earth. Amin (2021) describes urbanism as worlding, connecting living and non-living entities in generating intensities and meanings. Yet, this also entails a relational dimension with Earth that warrants more attention in planetary urbanisation. A planetary perspective on urbanisation is more than scale. This essay frames urbanism as an ethical, relational framework — a web of interconnected life in which https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.148026 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1270-3224 FENNIA 202(2) (2024) 287Tarmo Pikner human roles are continually negotiated. This approach draws from Spivak’s (2003) notion of planetarity, emphasizing more-than-human alterity and heterogeneity, approached with humility (also Tan 2020; Sheppard et al. 2013). By thickening and particularising contested meanings, we keep the planetary notion open (Bendik-Keymer 2020). This perspective resists framing the planetary as a totalising concept, instead valuing differences and contested concerns in earthly relations. Thus, the focus is not on anthropocentric, city-driven global processes but on holistic entanglements recognising interdependent life forms, care, and contested urban co-existence. The guiding question for this essay is: how do urbanities resonate with environmental matters while intersecting with disturbances, commons, and anticipated futures? Resonance, in this context, refers to how urban becomes extended and contested through more- than-human relations and commons, and how rhythms of endurance emerge alongside broader societal processes (Lancione and McFarlane 2021). Rosa (2019) argues that vibrant human existence lies not in control but in resonating — being affected by aspects of the world. Resonance brings humans into conversation with landscapes and urban change, stabilizing or accelerating transformations. It parallels the recognition of meaningful more-than-human exchanges involving humans and landscapes, forming capacities for landscape agency (Benediksson & Lund 2010). Agency is shaped through relational engagements where environmental matter resonates in trajectories of change and terrestrial formations (Latour 2018). These engagements give voice to non-humans, weaving nature and landscapes into contested realities and futures. More-than-human assemblages contribute to rethinking ‘care’ as maintenance work, including ethical and affective implications in sustaining life, aligning with naturecultural relations (Puig de la Bellacasa 2017). This paper explores diverse entanglements between cities, non-humans, and emergent ethical implications in sustaining life. Urban-environmental relations must account for historical and multi-spatial dimensions, as “dominant forms of urban sustainability planning and thinking focus too narrowly on cities” (Angelo & Wachsmuth 2020, 2213). My interest lies in tracing specific resonances of worlding that link turbulent environmental changes and planetary commons anticipation in coastal contexts. This context connects urbanism with non-city, fluid oceanic spaces and highlights relationships shaping responses to Earth and the planetary crisis. I explore this perspective through three coastal assemblage vignettes centred on waste, birds, and energy, linking urbanisation and the Baltic Sea. These vignettes illustrate commons dynamics influencing urbanism. This coastal assemblage approach extends beyond studied waterfront dynamics shaped by capital accumulation and political economies (Feldman 2000). The ‘coastal’ becomes part of the resonance of planetarity, co-produced through voluminous spaces (Swyngedouw & Ernstson 2018; Elden 2021) and materialized atmospheres that shape ways of urban living. Bringing urbanism down to Earth Urbanisation extends beyond institutional boundaries and formal city structures (Angelo 2017). Alternatives to dominant urban perspectives can be explored through ruralisation (Krause 2013) and contingent rural-urban assemblages in crisis (Pikner et al. 2023). Extended urbanisation might better account for place-based relations and political ecologies through landscape perspectives (Tuvikene et al. 2022). Viewing urbanisation through planetarity maintains openness to alterity, positioning humans as planetary subjects rather than global agents (Spivak 2003; Sheppard et al. 2013). This approach highlights human dependences on multiple life forms on Earth and extends entities and exchanges in co-existence. Planetarity is about ethical relations and epistemic lenses linking urbanisation to Earth, influencing rationalities and material conditions of urban change. It foregrounds more-than-human relations and challenges the notion of ‘humans’ as a unified global agent in the Anthropocene (Ruddick 2015). Significant differences exist in access to economic capital and consumption, making the idea of a generalised global agent problematic. Modernisation reinforced the nature/culture dichotomy and expanded human control over Earth. Latour (2017) critiques modernisation’s push toward a global human agency that imposes excessive burdens: “to think globally and to bear on his or her shoulders the entire weight of the Globe — that 288 FENNIA 202(2) (2024)Reviews and Essays strange Western obsession” (Ibid. ,, 122). This recalls Atlas bearing Earth as a control symbol. Latour (2017) suggests sphere-based perspectives, inspired by Sloterdijk (2016), uncover contradictions of anthropocentric control and emphasise the role of atmospheres in sustaining life. A sphere-based perspective aids in analysing planetary resonances in urbanisation, as urbanism materialises human- environment relations through (atmo)spheres. Forms of alterity and continuity in terrestrial worlding emerge through spatial spheres. While these internalise certain relations, they may overlook nature- culture entanglements. Elden (2012) argues that a volumetric approach reveals how spatiality evolves through internalisation and through relations to surroundings (see Wambacq & Tuinen 2017; Elden 2021). Protective atmospheres align with biopolitical immunisation frameworks for securing life (Swyngedouw & Ernstson 2018). The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted such immunisation strategies, from vaccination to controlled travel. Billé (2020) extends the sphere-based perspective to voluminous states and territories, encompassing underground, oceanic, and aerial spaces. Resonances of planetarity illuminate diverse politics of Earth or Gaia, which Latour (2017) has brought into foreground in wider discussion about climate as ontological condition for human existence. From this perspective, the political issue is that which gathers various stakeholders around it, gradually composing and clarifying the issue by determining what is truly at stake. Latour (2018, 40–41) argues that politics forming common and shared issues should ground humans and connect them with “terrestrial as a new political actor… geo designates an agent that participates in public life”. Elden (2021) builds on Latour’s ideas, advocating collaboration between physical and human geography to rethink ‘terrain’. This essay indicates ways terrestrial entanglements shape public negotiations around urbanism and environmental transformations. Urban life depends on networks integrating humans, infrastructure, materials, and natural habitats. Urbanisation processes either internalise planetary connections or overlook terrestrial entanglements. Commons and commoning reveal tensions in spatialised atmospheres crucial for sustaining life. Commoning shapes human-environment relations (Lang 2014; Gibson-Graham et al. 2016), and extended urbanisation influences these dynamics. The formation of political issue is important part of commoning, which brings together humans, non-humans and certain characteristics of urbanism. Commoning connects urban changes with non-city relations and nature/culture binaries (Pikner et al. 2020). Nonetheless, protective atmospheres may be assembled to distance or reject unwanted matters, leading to spheres of ignorance or Agnotocene (Bonneuil & Fressoz 2016). These spheres of ignorance can also indicate failed or existentially difficult commons, and strong believes into technological solutions. Cities in the Anthropocene present contradictions. They consume vast resources yet serve as testing grounds for new living and production models. Angelo and Wachsmuth (2020) note that urban sprawl, informal settlements, and the climate crisis represent significant aspects of a broader shift in discourse, reframing cities from being seen as sustainability problems to solutions. This latter perspective often relies heavily on future technologies and the potential of vibrant communities of practice. Yet, disruptions leave traces — factories and former military structures become wastelands, generating new nature-culture relations (Gandy 2022a). Linking urbanisation with political ecologies offers a relational framework for understanding capitalist urbanisation along historical processes (Gandy 2022b). Tsing (2015) shows that ruptured landscapes foster co-existence among non-human entities, capitalism, and communities. Disturbed landscapes thus serve as sites to explore resonances of planetarity in urbanisation. Next, I present three coastal vignettes that ground urbanism in specific contexts and illustrate resonances of planetarity. Estonia and Baltic Sea bound dynamics provide a lens on postsocialist transformations (Hirt et al. 2016). However, this paper seeks nuanced ways to understand urbanisation’s political-ecological (dis)continuities, as “…the difference we see is no longer owing to a socialist past and we need to look more meaningful ways of framing it” (Müller 2019, 545). Soviet-era legacies shape these coastal vignettes through ruptures, affects, and political-economic rationalities tied to future transformations. As Jehlička and Jacobsson (2021) argue, environmental issues and related public movements in Eastern Europe can offer novel insights in knowledge circuits without looking exact parallels with transformation pathways of Western Europe. This research examines ‘situated encounters’ (Wilson & Darling 2016) with coastal issues across time via interviews, public FENNIA 202(2) (2024) 289Tarmo Pikner archives, and observations. This is the first time these encounters are brought together to discuss resonances of planetarity in urbanisation. My approach traces relational and contested connections, exploring tensions between presence and absence. Vignette: wastelands and deep time of urban formations The hill of the Sillamäe radioactive waste depository is located near the Baltic Sea, adjacent to the industrial harbor and town facilities (Figure 1). During the Soviet era, Sillamäe grew significantly as a military-industrial hub in northeastern Estonia. Before the establishment of the industrial complex, the area was a small coastal village. The original inhabitants were displaced, and by the 1950s, Russian- speaking immigrants had moved to Sillamäe. The artificial hill, visible from the Sillamäe waterfront promenade, contains hundreds of tons of toxic and radioactive waste from oil-shale processing, nuclear fuel production, and rare metal refining during the Soviet period. It is likely that the first Soviet atomic bombs were produced using nuclear material from Sillamäe. Additionally, the region features underground caves and ash hills from oil-shale mining in northeastern Estonia, which can be seen as materialised wastelands resulting from urban expansion and its associated energy consumption. This accumulation of energy-related waste influences the relationship between urban change and environmental concerns. Fig. 1. The waterfront promenade under construction, with the radioactive waste hill in the background, Sillamäe, Ida-Viru, Estonia (Photo: Pikner 2020). 290 FENNIA 202(2) (2024)Reviews and Essays The formation of this military-industrial assemblage is characterized by a distinct urban architecture and form of urbanism. The evolving nature of nuclear complexes reflects how historical-political dependencies shape new social structures and perspectives on urban space (Liubimau 2019). Like other semi-secret Soviet nuclear towns, Sillamäe enjoyed certain privileges, such as access to higher- quality commodities, despite widespread shortages in the Soviet economy. Unlike some isolated Estonian islands during the Soviet era, Sillamäe’s residents had access to rare goods, including instant coffee, Bulgarian fruit compote, canned green beans, fabrics, and condensed milk (Tammer 2008). Brown (2015) describes similar conditions in the Soviet city of Ozersk in the Ural Mountains, where the population was divided between a privileged Russian core with access to special goods and a worker population, often from minority groups, who lived on the urban periphery and handled radioactive materials. Liubimau (2019) links the uneven distribution of goods and services in nuclear cities to exclusive modernist urbanization projects, such as Visaginas, Lithuania. A built environment rich in amenities functioned as a reward for those serving the regime, further embedding the Soviet Union’s Cold War geopolitical agenda in local settings. These influences remain evident in the area’s architectural design and underground infrastructure. With the collapse of the Iron Curtain, the environmental risks linked to the military-energy assemblage and the town became apparent. A Nordic joint mission assessed the extent of pollution (see Kaasik 2006), revealing eight million cubic meters of waste containing 1,830 tons of uranium. A significant portion of this semi-liquid nuclear waste was located near the Baltic Sea coast, where radiation levels near the repository were one hundred times higher than background radiation in the surrounding area. In 1997, Sweden initiated an international commission to address the crisis, exploring ways to mitigate environmental hazards associated with the nuclear legacy. The first priority was reinforcing the deteriorating, 25-meter-high earthen repository wall, constructed from 500-million- year-old Cambrian blue clay and increasingly threatened by storm waves. The second phase involved encapsulating the entire radioactive repository in multiple layers of insulating material to ensure stabilization for the next millennium (Kaasik 2006). This millennium-scale time horizon and the Cambrian blue clay contrast with urban materialized atmospheres, which typically operate on much shorter timescales of decades or a century (Pikner 2024a). Although uranium enrichment has ceased, rare earth metal production continues in Sillamäe, with raw materials sourced from Africa and Latin America. These metals are extensively used in the electronics industry, linking Sillamäe to global commodity chains supporting information technology networks (see Parikka 2014). Plans to export unwanted radioactive waste to the White Mesa uranium mill in Utah, USA, gained media attention and sparked protests in 2020. Concerns included potential damage to the Bears Ears National Monument, risks to Indigenous communities and cultural sites, and threats to drinking water quality. The continued industrial waste production and contested disposal methods highlight specific spheres of extraction and radioactive matter management, shaping urban-environmental relations. The city has realized its ambitious plan to construct a coastal promenade connecting the city centre to the waterfront. This project also seeks to showcase Sillamäe’s Soviet-era architectural heritage, which has gained recognition through Estonian cultural heritage policies. The legacies of nuclear energy are evident in the monument titled Peaceful Atom (1987) and a recent public museum exhibition detailing Sillamäe’s history as a uranium production site. Visitors can virtually explore the nuclear atom’s structure and engage with the dystopian society depicted in Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel We. This coastal encounter underscores the profound disturbances Soviet military nuclear legacies have imposed on landscapes. During the Soviet period, affected settlements were enclosed within military-nuclear assemblages through labour and infrastructure. In the post-Soviet era, socio- environmental disturbances in the town continue to shape perceptions of spatial futures. Urban futures have been discursively separated from pollution legacies by framing unwanted matter as an environmental issue rather than an aspect of urban transformation (Pikner 2024a). Urban renewal projects proceeded only after securing the nuclear waste for a millennium. It indicates that commoning is entangled to complex time dimensions and spatiality in repositioning leaky toxic matter, which forms precondition for maintenance of life and urban renewal. Consequently, the significant disruptions caused by the military-industrial complex have been internalised into the landscape, FENNIA 202(2) (2024) 291Tarmo Pikner partially obscured by waterfront promenades and heritage narratives. Nevertheless, the ongoing exploitation of industrial scars, or ‘zones of ignorance’ (Bonneuil & Fressoz 2016), around Sillamäe and the Ida-Viru region persists, with public discourse focusing on large-scale industrial projects, such as wind farms and a potential nuclear power plant, on the affected (post)industrial terrain. This vignette illustrates the resonance of planetarity in urbanisation primarily through voluminous spatiality (Elden 2012; Billé 2020) and complex temporality (Simon & Tamm 2023) in positioning toxic waste, thereby reconfiguring the dynamics of urban change. It is important to recognise the shifting configurations of commons evoked by toxic matter: the recognition and material immunisation of a matter is followed by cultural dimension of opening and internalising of Soviet legacies for communities and urbanism. Vignette: living with non-humans at the edge of a city The coastal terrain of Paljassaare in North Tallinn is part of the Natura 2000 bird protection area (See Figure 2). This designation has elevated the significance of birds, such as the Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea), within urban-nature assemblages, granting them a degree of agency in representing non- human interests. Nature conservation efforts on this Tallinn peninsula have created tensions with surfers, dog owners, real estate developers, and city planners. Recent assessments of bird habitats have hindered plans to construct a seamless promenade connecting the city’s waterfronts. The Bird Club has advocated for expanding the protection area further into marine and aerial spaces (Pikner 2022). Fig. 2. Walking paths in the Natura 2000 bird protection area, Tallinn. (Photo: Pikner 2022). 292 FENNIA 202(2) (2024)Reviews and Essays During the Soviet era and even years after the dissolution of the border zone, the absence of public infrastructure, the presence of a waterfront border zone, and security concerns kept the general public away from the peninsula. Bird-watching enthusiasts emerged as a dedicated community of practice, documenting the rich ecosystem of migrating birds through activities such as mapping, which involved observing and counting birds at specific locations. Their work identified migratory flyways, positioning the peninsula as a critical migration corridor and foraging site. The awareness generated by these mappings became a key argument for integrating the terrain and its coastal spaces into the pan-European Natura 2000 protection framework, which ultimately took precedence over competing housing development plans. The establishment of the coastal protection area in 2005 was driven by the Bird Club, whose members successfully blocked vehicle access to the conservation area. They also organized volunteer efforts to clean the site, removing waste from the Soviet navy as well as more recent illegal dumping. Despite ongoing challenges posed by public beach users and unrestrained dogs, the Bird Club prioritized raising environmental awareness over seeking a higher protection status. Adjacent to the bird protection area is Tallinn’s wastewater treatment plant. The peninsula’s proximity to the city centre has also fuelled real estate interest in Paljassaare. The current industrial harbour, which houses ship repair facilities, is slated to transform into a vibrant urban neighbourhood within the next two decades. Notably, spatial plans for artificial islands are being developed in conjunction with real estate projects. An early version of the general plan even included a proposed artificial island for gambling casinos near Paljassaare. Nature conservationists opposed the plan, arguing that the casino island would be located in shallow coastal waters essential for migratory birds. A compromise was reached through the creation of an additional artificial island, specifically designated as a bird island, by depositing material to provide alternative feeding grounds for migratory species. Rather than viewing these developments in Paljassaare as distinct ruptures in regimes and landscapes, it is essential to understand the urban dynamics as part of “disturbance-based ecologies in which many species live together without either harmony or conquest” (Tsing 2015, 5). Disturbances are inherent to living environments, creating complex entanglements between ecologies and social practices. This perspective frames coastal spaces as commons shaped by unintended urban design, often bypassing human control and formal spatial planning. The resonance between urban development and planetary concerns is evident in the way nature conservation efforts have compelled city planning to recognise migratory flyways and bird habitats along shared commons (see also Huron 2015). Rare migratory birds became vivid part of public concerns and care for prioritising certain forms of life in urban change. This example indicates the importance of more-than-human assemblages in forming commons, which generate ethical and affective implications of sustaining life (see also Puig de la Bellacasa 2017). Paradoxically, former closed military coastal zones and waste disposal sites have later become areas designated for bird conservation and recreational beaches. Consequently, urban planning has a challenge to acknowledging ‘patchy lived spaces’ (Tsing 2015) in forming commons, multiple temporalities, and the shifting assemblages between humans and non-humans. Vignette: seascapes influenced by energy matter and urbanisation Piret has collected various stones from the shores of Hiiumaa (See Figure 3), using them to explain how waves shape specific coastal landforms. As an island resident, she is concerned about the planned offshore wind energy parks in the surrounding marine space. Piret played a key role in a legal case against the developer and the Estonian state, which delayed offshore wind park planning but did not halt the process entirely (Tafon et al. 2023). FENNIA 202(2) (2024) 293Tarmo Pikner Fig. 3. Inhabitant of Hiiumaa island discussing offshore wind energy initiatives (Photo: Pikner 2023). Diverse interests and tensions over energy futures are further complicated by the war in Ukraine. Cities and towns have been slow to adopt renewable energy solutions, while the island municipality remains primarily focused on energy security — an issue exacerbated by inadequate infrastructure and the geopolitical instability of the conflict. The Estonian state promotes offshore wind energy as a means to achieve carbon neutrality and stabilise energy supply amid uncertainty. While most island residents remain indifferent to the issue, the Hiiu Tuul initiative has actively opposed the industrialization of Hiiumaa’s landscapes. Established in 2015, Hiiu Tuul is a non-governmental organization (NGO) uniting permanent and seasonal residents against offshore wind energy projects near the island. While the visual impact of wind turbines has become a secondary concern, members highlight potential negative effects on non-human entities. In conversations with two Hiiu Tuul members in March 2022, they expressed concerns about industrial noise and vibrations from the planned turbines, comparing them to disruptions caused by a large pig farm nearby. They also questioned the justification for sacrificing the open marine landscape to produce energy that primarily benefits foreign corporations and distant cities. Gaining support from influential summer residents, Hiiu Tuul has strengthened its legal and public arguments. The contested discussion of new maritime protected areas has unfolded alongside the territorialisation of offshore energy production sites and maintenance of certain forms and rural- urban ways of life. Shallow waters, rich in marine ecosystems, have become a focal point for nature conservation agencies, while wind park developers are equally concerned with sea depth, as additional depth significantly raises construction costs. Thus, conflicting interests — between resource extraction and nature conservation — have shaped debates over marine space. The lack of comprehensive data on marine environments has also raised questions about what constitutes the best available 294 FENNIA 202(2) (2024)Reviews and Essays knowledge for assessing marine matter and habitats. This issue was central to the court case against the offshore wind park, which Hiiu Tuul won against the state and private developer in 2018. However, pressure for wind energy development around Hiiumaa has persisted, with the state seeking alternative ways to advance offshore energy projects. The territorialisation of marine space for wind energy encompasses sea volumes extending from the seabed to surface conditions and aerial space. Beyond harnessing wind forces, these offshore environments serve as habitats for fish, seals, birds, bats, and humans. Economic activities and capital flows transform marine spaces into sites of extraction and urban expansion. As Couling (2017, 176) notes, “seascapes are modified ocean landscapes, shaped and cultivated by human interaction”. Wind energy projects have further altered seascapes, extending offshore and integrating them into urban imaginaries. With millions of ferry and cruise passengers experiencing the sea annually, the ocean is increasingly framed as a common referential space, shaped by cultural and historical contexts and influenced by contemporary socio-economic forces. In the Baltic Sea, urban forces from regional coastlines have structured different strata of ocean space: the seabed, equipped with pipelines and cables; the surface, regulated by shipping movements; and airspace, designated for wind energy (Ibid. ). The intersection of urbanism and undersea infrastructures became evident when an electricity cable between Estonia and Finland was damaged. The 2022 explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipeline further intensified global debates on energy security, making an earlier geopolitical turning points visible (Ruudi 2008; Pikner 2024b, Tynkkynen 2024). Urbanised strata is connected to ocean space through intensified nodes that operationalise maritime areas. The dynamics of planetary urbanisation (Brenner & Schmid 2015) extend global agency over both terrestrial and oceanic terrains, producing an “operationalized and commodified sea space that has replaced the previous sea commons and is now marked by an evacuation of the social” (Schmid & Topalovic 2023, 14). This approach could benefit from a resonance of planetarity perspective for a more nuanced understanding of multiple engagements and contested values in linking urbanism to seascapes. The case of offshore wind energy highlights the hybrid co-constitution of scales and contested landscapes in energy transitions. Marine spaces are increasingly entangled in large-scale societal transformations and urbanisation, integrating the ocean into the green transition and negotiations across different scales of life and governance. The territorialisation of resources is a crucial component of “landscapes as a lens for perceiving with” (Wylie 2007, 217), raising a critical question: who, and which places, should bear the accumulated effects of energy transitions (Pikner 2024b)? A landscape- centred perspective helps situate these debates, showing how technologies and energy infrastructures, despite their integration into the European grid, remain embedded in specific territories and local communities (Nadaï & van der Horst 2010). The formation of voluminous terrains is central to the territorialisation of offshore wind energy and marine conservation, making these terrains key sites in contested energy futures, which influence extended forms of urbanism. Coda Urbanism, as a way of organising and living with both nearby and distant environments, is deeply intertwined with terrestrial existence. Extended urbanisation reveals modern ideals of growth and emergent transformations imposed on the Earth. These shifts highlight planetarities by framing “terrestrial as a new political actor” (Latour 2018, 40), encompassing tensions between global externalisation and localised affects to ‘geo’. This suggests that surface-oriented, anthropocentric globalisation is diminishing, while place-based entanglements bring the Earth back into the public realm. The three vignettes on coastal assemblages of the Baltic Sea illustrate how urbanisation generates and projects itself through volumetric spatiality, extending beyond land and city borders. The fluid, voluminous marine environment introduces particular lived and anticipated ecologies into terrestrial considerations. These sphere-like spatialities contribute to both extracting new resources and protecting specific natural habitats, offering insights into the complexity of internalisation and sustaining life (Swyngedouw & Ernstson 2018). Internalisation manifests in various forms, such as FENNIA 202(2) (2024) 295Tarmo Pikner concrete barriers against radioactive pollution or natureculture sensibilities tied to bird protection. Consequently, urbanisation’s forces become visible as volumetric terrains, shaping densities of life and extending boundaries. The contested internalisation of global growth’s dark excesses becomes evident in wealthy (western) countries and cities, affecting both communities and landscapes, often resulting in counter-movements and populism. Focusing on planetarity rather than anthropocentric global operations keeps planetary formations open and problematises more-than-human alterity in urban-environmental entanglements (Tan 2020; Sheppard et al. 2013). Coastal vignettes reveal aspects of alterity emerging through recognised proximities, making non-humans visible in urbanising environments and (dis)appearing landscapes. Spatially embedded framings of change and care practices become crucial components of planetarities with affective capacities. For instance, mapping migratory birds altered public perception of the peninsula and influenced later urban planning. Community members discussed seal habitats and wind turbine noise pollution based on their passionate search for information and lived experiences. More-than-human coastal assemblages, discussed in the essay, thus helped frame and mobilise care and ethical attitudes toward life-sustaining processes (Puig de la Bellacasa 2017). In these processes non-humans have role in affecting and gathering diverse stakeholders around contested commons, which links urbanism with coastal terrestrial and Earth. Further studies could discuss agency in complex assemblages where non-humans more directly contribute to care for humans and maintenance of urbanising societies. This study suggests that ‘planetarity’ is about ethical relations and epistemic lenses connecting urbanisation to natureculture relations and terrestrial becoming, which influence rationalities and material conditions of urban change. These ethical relations situate humans through extending responsibility for sustaining diverse life forms while living on the planet Earth. Resonance of planetarity has sustainability implications in framing “multiple ruptural points of global system” (Brown 2015b, 130) and rethinking values and care in future transformations. Imagining landscape transformations is challenging because two-dimensional maps and simplistic models fail to capture place-based scale of planetary changes where urbanisation plays a key role. Bringing ‘geo’ and planetarities into public debates about future transformations requires dedicated efforts and events that reconfigure the role of cities. However, rethinking otherness and nature/ culture divides within the perspective of planetarity — as an act of humility and deepened meaning toward surrounding life — requires further exploration in urbanism. This essay argues that the concept of resonance (Rosa 2019; Lancione & McFarlane 2021) benefits from a spatial perspective combining transformation’s temporal dimensions with terrestrial becomings. Coastal dynamics illuminated the resonance of planetarity through ruptures, affects, and endurance, linking humans and ethical attitudes to transforming environments and non-humans. These resonances suggest rethinking extended urbanisation, focusing on resource extraction and humans’ position within disturbed ecologies and anticipated futures. Resonance also underscores the complex temporal dimensions between past and future, considering legacies as active part transformations (see also Simon & Tamm 2023). The coastal context offers contested accumulation spaces and thresholds connecting global changes and crises to the Earth and becoming of terrestrial. A radioactive waste dump and anticipated offshore wind farms form an energy assemblage resonating with affected communities and policymakers. The vignettes highlight urban-environmental entanglements where contested ideologies of nature reshape environmental problem-solving alongside reconfigured urbanism (see also Angelo & Wachsmuth 2020). Planetarity in urbanism translates Earth-bound connections into urban change and challenges humans’ role in this process. The ‘spheres of ignorance’ (Bonneuil & Fressoz 2016) in global urbanisation shape cities as parasites dependent on distant resources and waste dumps. However, some zones of ignorance can transform into places of natureculture care, raising questions about conviviality. The role of commons and commoning (Huron 2015; Pikner et al. 2020) is crucial, as commoning generates essential foundations for internalising and challenging binaries like nature/culture in urbanism. Contested commons emerged in coastal bird protection areas and offshore energy territories, both influenced by urbanisation dynamics. Commoning makes urbanism’s terrestrial entanglements visible and relevant in coming down to earth. As Latour (2018, 2) 296 FENNIA 202(2) (2024)Reviews and Essays argues: “…we need something like a map of the positions imposed by the new landscape within which not only the affects of public life but also its stakes are being redefined”. Becoming urban ways of living and the resonances of planetarity should undoubtedly be part of these new landscapes and transformational stakes. 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