ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes the future development challenges and reviews past changes in the region that we have termed 'Middle America'. It talks about Sylvia Chant and David Howard consideration of the regional constructions of gender and ethnicity, and how these particular social characteristics have been incorporated into development policies. The book focuses on the local specificity of processes and solutions, recognising the interactions between larger-scale national and global processes, and individual and household characteristics. It discusses the national-level development strategies, highlighting how governments have implemented policies in the agricultural sector and the non-agricultural sectors in response to changing external forces and particular development ideologies. The book explains the sustainability, examining urban environments, but by using examples from a range of countries and scales he exemplifies the multidimensional nature of sustainable urbanisation.
