Environment and the City

‘Cities’ are now home for over half the world’s population — the hubs and gateways for capital, innovation, markets, resources and migration. On current trends the future may be a ‘planet of slums’ — many cities are places of poverty, crime and struggles for resources, where the ‘environment’ is polluted and hazardous. Other cities are sites of conspicuous consumption, where the ‘environment’ is a commodity seen from a car or hotel window. But even such extreme cases are inter-dependent and connected in a global system of power and money, resource flows and ideology.

Environment and the City is an introduction to the many layers of the ‘human urban environment’. It examines the full range of issues and elements that make-up the urban environment, including the consumption of resources, population pressures, and the pattern of urban development. These different issues and elements are examined through adopting an inter-disciplinary perspective, drawing equally on geography, sociology, economics and political science, as well as the environmental and resource sciences. As a consequence, the book is able to focus on the key debates that are of critical importance for the cities of both the developed and less-developed nations. The result is not a simple, single solution, rather the book offers a set of directions and tools of enquiry that provide a realistic and practical approach to understanding and managing sustainable cities and regions.

This book is a concise and accessible guide for all students interested in the environmental issues emanating from our urban societies. Primarily written to aid student understanding, the easily navigable text features boxed practical examples, discussion points, signposts to reading and websites and a glossary. Nevertheless the book will also be useful to policy-makers and practitioners in geography and environmental studies, urban planning and development, urban politics and sociology, and others who think the future of our urban civilization and its impact on the environment is pertinent.

‘Cities’ are now home for over half the world’s population — the hubs and gateways for capital, innovation, markets, resources and migration. On current trends the future may be a ‘planet of slums’ — many cities are places of poverty, crime and struggles for resources, where the ‘environment’ is polluted and hazardous. Other cities are sites of conspicuous consumption, where the ‘environment’ is a commodity seen from a car or hotel window. But even such extreme cases are inter-dependent and connected in a global system of power and money, resource flows and ideology.

Environment and the City is an introduction to the many layers of the ‘human urban environment’. It examines the full range of issues and elements that make-up the urban environment, including the consumption of resources, population pressures, and the pattern of urban development. These different issues and elements are examined through adopting an inter-disciplinary perspective, drawing equally on geography, sociology, economics and political science, as well as the environmental and resource sciences. As a consequence, the book is able to focus on the key debates that are of critical importance for the cities of both the developed and less-developed nations. The result is not a simple, single solution, rather the book offers a set of directions and tools of enquiry that provide a realistic and practical approach to understanding and managing sustainable cities and regions.

This book is a concise and accessible guide for all students interested in the environmental issues emanating from our urban societies. Primarily written to aid student understanding, the easily navigable text features boxed practical examples, discussion points, signposts to reading and websites and a glossary. Nevertheless the book will also be useful to policy-makers and practitioners in geography and environmental studies, urban planning and development, urban politics and sociology, and others who think the future of our urban civilization and its impact on the environment is pertinent.

Peter Roberts is Professor of Spatial Sustainable Development at the University of Leeds. He is an active researcher in the field of urban and regional planning, development and environmental management. His early work on ecological modernisation provided the foundations for Urban Mines.

Joe Ravetz is Co-Director of the Centre for Urban & Regional Ecology at the University of Manchester. He is the author of the landmark book City-Region 2020.

Clive George is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Development Policy and Management at the University of Manchester. He is co-author and editor of Environmental Assessment in Developing and Transitional Countries.