Sustainable development and cities.

Abstract

This book chapter discusses how unmet needs of an urban population in developing countries can be met without imposing environmental costs on others outside the city or depleting environmental capital. The chapter offers a framework for addressing population environmental and development issues in sustainable ways. Sustainability can include social cultural economic program operations and maintenance and/or community sustainability. Social sustainability may mean social change rather than keeping something going. When defined as social conditions necessary for supporting environmental sustainability important issues about distribution of resources can be addressed for the present and the future. Sustainable can refer to sustaining the global resource base or limiting the disruption to global cycles. This definition ignores the numbers of people living in poverty malnutrition and ill health among those who lack access to land and water for survival. Environments contribute to the premature death of millions of infants and children. It is best that sustainable development include desirable social economic or political goals at the community city regional and national level. The framework proposed in Our Common Future states that actions must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This implies minimizing use or waste of renewable resources sustainable use of renewable resources and maintenance of wastes within absorptive capacity of local and global sinks. The current scale and scope of environmental problems poses a threat to future generations. Cities are dependent on fresh water food and fuel. Progress has been slow in containing global warming greenhouse gas emissions and poverty or changing the international economic system to permit more economic stability and prosperity among poorer nations.