ABSTRACT
Much international assessment and reporting on urbanization and urban population trends falls into one of two camps. The first distinguishes urban and rural areas and populations and then reports and evaluates information about urban populations for larger political units, such as countries and continents, and globally (Satterthwaite, 2005; United Nations, 2006). The second focuses on particular urban areas or city-regions, and often includes spatial analysis of urban expansion. Special attention is often given to mega-cities (see, for example, Cohen 1993; Fujita and Thisse, 2002), but there are also case studies of urban settlements of all sizes. Something important is lost between these two approaches, especially when it comes to monitoring the environmental implications of urbanization. There is a need for a perspective of urbanization that is both spatial and global and allows the environmental settings of urbanization and urban growth to be considered at country, continental and global scales.
