ABSTRACT
Three of the great transformations of the 21st century include ever tightening economic globalization, increasing urbanization of low- and middle-income countries and the acceleration of human-induced global environmental change (GEC). Current trends suggest that increasingly interdependent economic development and associated communication linkages will bring the economies and cultures of the world into ever closer contact: that 60 percent of the population in low- and middle-income countries could live in urbanized areas by 2030 (above the current estimate of 50 percent); and that there could be as much as a 6°C degree increase in global temperature by the year 2100. Central to the inter-related processes of globalization, urbanization and environmental change are shifts in patterns of both production and consumption. While there have been numerous analyses of the connections among globalization, urbanization and changing patterns of industrial production, there is also widespread recognition of the need to examine consumption-related aspects of globalization in cities and the environmental and social consequences of that consumption (Dicken, 2011; Seto et al., 2010; Leichenko and Solecki, 2008; McCarthy, 2007; Sklair, 2002; Molotch, 2003; Bridge, 2002; Princen et al., 2002; Wilk, 2002).
