Publisher's Synopsis
"At the beginning of the 20th century an estimated five percent of the world's population lived in cities. Today, half the world's population is urbanized. Urban sustainability is multifaceted and encompasses security, economics, environment and resources, health, and quality of life. It can be viewed as the intersection of two extremely complex and not yet fully understood processes, urbanization and global sustainability, which will increasingly overlap as urban populations continue to grow. Effective policies are critical for addressing urban sustainability, and must be politically realistic in deciding on appropriate balances, such as centralized versus decentralized systems, "soft" versus "hard" solutions, local versus regional focus, agriculture versus pollution, and free markets versus. interventions."--Publisher's description.
