ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on a background paper entitled Sustainable Development and Cities that the authors wrote for Global Forum 94, the Forum in Manchester (UK) that brought together representatives of municipal authorities, trade unions, academics and non-governmental organization and community organizations from 50 cities to discuss the issue of sustainable development. It provides a framework for considering the multiple goals that are embedded within the term sustainable development for cities. The chapter considers the potential that cities have for meeting the priorities of their citizens while also reducing the degradation or depletion of environmental capital. It concerns how the unmet needs of city inhabitants, especially in the South, can be articulated and addressed, without imposing environmental costs on other people or depleting environmental capital. Sustainable development is different aspects of development or of human activities that have to be sustained for instance sustaining economic growth or human development or achieving social or political sustainability.
