During the fall of 2018, a two-day seminar in Lulea, Sweden, gathered an interdisciplinary group of researchers to reflect on the socio-urban and political processes of resource extraction and urbanization in the global periphery. Cases from the Arctic region and South America were discussed from the point of view of law, history and technology, planning, and urban economics to explore the multiple conflicts arising from resource-based development in sparsely populated areas. From this perspective, we present here the cases of Kiruna, Sweden, and Calama, Chile, to highlight the need to expand urban and landscape research into the nexus between resources and urbanization.