ABSTRACT
Urban development in the region is characterised by contradiction and extremes, with dramatic and rapid shifts in urban character and the role played by urbanisation in national economic and political life. As economies move through a development transition they tend to shift from an agricultural towards an industrial and service sector base. Mexico has the most extensive urban system, as we would expect from the region's most populous and largest country. A continuum of interpretations of sustainable development has evolved from academic writing and policy statements with two poles of weak and strong sustainability. Reorienting cities towards sustainability places emphasis on the need for open and inclusive urban management set within an integrated hierarchy of local, regional and international governance. Emigration has also been encouraged in the French Caribbean as a mechanism for population control, yet this has faltered in the 1980s and 1990s in response to changing economic conditions in metropolitan France and increasing return migration.
