| URBAN
ENVIRONMENT
Cities are the generators of very
significant environmental impacts – their concentration
of people and activities in small geographical areas contribute
to high levels of energy use, waste products, pollution,
and ecological modification; while their complex processes
of expansion and renovation of the built environment increase
the pressure to find sustainable arrangements for future
growth. Five clusters of innovative policies and practices
contribute, together with their multiple interrelationships,
to the ‘social dimension’ of urban development.
They are :
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| 
Expanding the notion of environmental planning & management,
this cluster analyses the mainstreaming of environmental
assessment into local municipal policies and programmes,
linking environmental with poverty reduction and basic service
provision, and developing sustainable cities.
.
|
Supporting sustainable cities and the notion of ecological
footprint: this cluster includes new policy and programme
initiatives in global-local linkages, economic- environmental
trade-offs, priorities and strategies for ecological conservation,
responsibilising the use of resources and minimising unsustainable
consumption. |
This cluster emphasises ways to combat environmental degradation
and pollution hazard, including innovative technical, social
and community-based responses to water, sanitation and waste
disposal, industrial and urban energy pollution, together
with public health protection and hazard reduction measures. |
|
The promotion of Local Agenda 21 includes innovative schemes
for community natural resource conservation, community partnerships
and co-operatives for greening local development programmes,
recycling projects and urban agriculture practices, and
the extension of local sustainability indicators and monitoring
processes. |
