ABSTRACT
Environmental policy is made at a number of levels in western Europe. This variety of levels is officially encouraged in the EU, by the Fifth Environmental Action Programme, and globally by Agenda 21. But there is considerable diversity in the force of these policy-making efforts at each level, and in the ways in which the levels interrelate. This Chapter explores some aspects of this diversity, by examining the recent experience of two cities, within their regions: Barcelona/Catalonia and Birmingham/West Midlands. In looking at these places, there are three aims: first, to establish the extent of similarity and difference in environmental policy-making; second, to relate these differences to three facets of the cities/regions-their characters in economic, ecological and political terms; and, third, to comment on the levels of intervention and the powers necessary to make progress in environmental policy.
