ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the local, regional and global interdependencies involved in urban growth, economic development and environmental change. The growth of urban population can be measured both as the percentage increase in numbers living in cities, and as urbanisation, i.e. the growing proportion of a national or regional population that is urbanised (Oberai 1993). Both dimensions are widely thought to be important in terms of environmental change and development. Rapidly growing, very large cities are held by some commentators to be almost inherently environmentally unsustainable, although in truth it is the incapacity of fast-growing cities to meet even the basic infrastructure needs of their residents which is the main problem, not growth per se. In a similar vein, there is a long-standing concern that an increase in urbanisation causes the countryside to lose its distinctive characteristics; this leads to an alienation of urban people from nature, which in turn lends itself to the adoption of environmentally unsustainable habits (McMichael 1993). The present chapter focuses on the nature of urban environmental change from a predominantly economic point of view, encompassing the attempts of policy makers to influence urban development. In the next chapter attention is turned to the internal economic and social workings of the city.
