Urbanization
If we were to list the major global changes of the last half of the 20th Century - and continuing into the 21st - urbanization would be high on this list. Almost half of the world's population now lives in cities, compared to only 10% a century ago. While only 20% of people in Africa and Asia lived in cities 25 years ago, by 2030 this figure will exceed 50%. In 1900, the largest city in the world was London, with 6.5 million persons. The largest city is now Tokyo, with 28 million persons (London is not even in the top 10 cities in the world in terms of population). We now have the phenomenon of "mega-cities" (cities with over 10 million persons). There are now 23 mega-cities and in just over a decade there will be 13 more.

1. Urbanization and Environmental Change:
Issues and Options for Human Security

The environmental changes linked to urbanization create particular challenges to human security.
This article: a) presents the dynamics of urbanization and environmental change; b) identifies a sub-set of human security issues that result from these dynamics; and c) outlines a number of options that can be pursued to improve human security while contributing to sustainable development.

Introduction

We are on the verge of an urbanized world. By the time we complete this first decade of the 21st Century, more than half of the world's population will be living in cities and towns. At the beginning of the 20th Century, less than 10% of the world was urban. Cities are where the world's population, including the poorest people, will increasingly reside. At the same time, urban areas are more and more the engines of national and regional economic growth. Thus, they are the world's most important consumers of resources, generators of waste, and, consequently, sources of environmental problems.

The Dynamics of Urbanization and Environmental Change

Environmental change occurs when one moves from rural to urban settings for a number of different reasons. On average, cities tend to have worse air quality, less ultraviolet radiation, more fog, greater cloudiness, more precipitation, a higher temperature, less humidity, and lower wind speeds than surrounding rural areas. Important factors influence these and other environmental characteristics that make cities different. Primary determinants include: a) a city's level of economic development; b) rapid demographic change; c) natural and spatial factors; and d) the institutional setting. The interaction of these variables constitutes the dynamics that link urbanization and environmental change.

Figure 1. Percentage of Population Residing in Urban Areas, 1975 - 2030

Source: UN Population Division, 1999

Economic development: A simplistic model of the relationship between economic growth and the urban environment would suggest that, as cities become wealthier, they consume and throw out more. Thus, economic growth should lead to greater environmental degradation from higher resource use and higher waste generation per capita. However, the evidence shows that this is only partially true. As cities grow economically (as measured by per capita income), they produce more municipal waste and carbon dioxide emissions per person. However, urban concentrations of particulate matter decrease with growing wealth, as do sulphur dioxide emissions (after a period of increase). Importantly, the percentage of the population with access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation increases dramatically with economic growth. This more complicated picture can be understood if we add some additional information to the simplistic model.

Consumption and waste increase with economic growth. At the same time, as cities become richer, they have more resources (financial, technological, and human) to solve certain problems and a more educated and wealthier population that increasingly demands a better quality of life. Thus, citizens demand (and can increasingly pay for) piped water, sewerage, and air that does not have health-threatening pollutants, such as fine particulates, sulphur dioxide, and lead. Municipal, and sometimes national governments, sooner or later respond to this demand and, with higher revenues from economic development, they have the resources to provide water, remove wastes, and clean the air for more of the urban population. Benefits also extend beyond the wealthy and educated classes to a broader group of citizens. Emissions of municipal solid waste and carbon dioxide increase on a per capita basis, partly because of greater consumption of energy and other resources, and partly because these are externalities that usually do not directly affect the health and well-being of urban residents in the short term.

Figure 2. The Urban Environmental Transition in Cities

Source: McGranahan et al., 2001

Thus, as cities develop economically, the nature of environmental risks faced by their populations undergoes a transition. This is graphically shown in Figure 2. In the poorest cities, household sanitation problems are most severe; they are also local, immediate, and health threatening. As cities develop economically, household sanitation improves but ambient air quality deteriorates and carbon dioxide emissions begin to grow. In the wealthiest cities, household sanitation is usually excellent and air quality has improved, but emissions of greenhouse gases continue to rise; in these cities, problems are more global in nature, have a delayed impact, and threaten life support systems.

Demographic factors: Rapid population growth is especially important for the urban environment in developing country cities. As a city grows, there is a greater concentration of people, industry, commerce, vehicles, energy consumption, water use, waste generation, and other environmental stresses. Cities that are doubling every 10 to 20 years must rapidly mobilize resources to manage and mitigate the impacts of these stresses.

The scale of the problem can often exceed the capacity of local government to collect, treat, and dispose of municipal sewage and solid wastes, the capacity of authorities to control dangerous wastes and emissions, and the capacity of nature to assimilate all of these wastes. An analogous scale problem exists on the input side as a result of the concentrated resource consumption taking place in urban areas. Urban demand for fossil fuels, water, food, minerals, timber and fuelwood, and other resources often has impacts on distant peoples, watersheds, and forests. These problems can exist for large and mega-cities where the magnitude of resource consumption and waste generation is enormous and the jurisdictional situation is often complex. They can also affect smaller and medium-sized cities that may not have the capacity or the resources to respond to rapid changes in population and the nature of environmental problems.

Natural and spatial factors: Two key conditions that affect the nature of the urban environment are: the features of the ecosystem(s) where a city is located, and the patterns of land use. A city's surrounding ecosystem(s) can have important consequences for the degree and nature of environmental problems faced in an urban area. This includes the geography, topography, vegetation, and climate where a city is located. For example, London has not suffered from malaria because it is not located in a tropical ecosystem where the mosquito vector can thrive.
Air pollution in Mexico City and Los Angeles is intensified because of natural and climatological features in those cities that result in thermal inversions. The built environment in a city also constitutes a sort of ecosystem, which affects air quality, wind speed, and water management.

Urban land use decisions are critical determinants of environmental quality. At some point in their existence, most cities have experienced distortions in land markets. Poorly functioning land markets, combined with ineffective land management policies and practices, have resulted in: the degradation of environmentally fragile lands (e.g., wetlands and coastal resources); the occupation of hazard-prone areas (e.g., steep slopes, flood plains, and vacant land adjacent to polluting industries or waste disposal sites); air pollution; congestion and accidents; and the loss of cultural/historical resources, open space, and prime agricultural land.

Density and spatial patterns of development also have important implications for various environmental outcomes. For example, high density development can achieve economies of scale in infrastructure provision, but impose higher costs associated with congestion (e.g., the rapid spread of communicable disease due to crowding or increased incidences of accidental injuries) if the development is not well-planned and provided with adequate infrastructure. Lower density development outside of the central city means reduced congestion in residential areas, but higher costs for infrastructure provision, and in the absence of adequate public transport, higher levels of air pollution from automobile traffic. The concentration of industry in relatively few locations is another factor that imposes serious environmental consequences.
In the metropolitan areas of Bangkok, Lima, Mexico City, Manila, and São Paulo, for example, industrial pollution, including the impacts of poorly managed hazardous wastes, imposes serious health impacts in the areas of the country where there are the highest concentrations of population.

Institutional setting: There are a number of institutional factors that influence urban environmental outcomes. First, the composition, interests, relative power, and interactions of stakeholders are important. Next, the relationship of jurisdictions to key environmental problems in a city has serious consequences. Finally, the degree to which there is intersectoral coordination will affect how cross-media environmental problems are managed.

To a large extent, the nature of urban environmental problems is determined by the interaction of numerous public, private, not-for-profit, and household stakeholders, each group having its own interests and patterns of behavior. The varied, and sometimes conflicting, actions and viewpoints of these actors can add to other constraints on improving environmental quality and human security.

Ideally, levels of responsibility and decision-making should correspond to the scale of an environmental problem. However, actual jurisdictional arrangements usually do not adhere to this principle. For example, municipal authorities are normally responsible for solid waste management but their usually inadequate approaches to disposal have important spillover effects for neighboring jurisdictions within a region or metropolitan area. A second jurisdictional factor is that urban institutions are often not the only stakeholders with the power to address environmental problems within their jurisdictions. For example, leaded gasoline may be causing health problems in a particular city, but the authority to regulate fuel composition usually rests with the national government. Thus, cities usually cannot solve many of their environmental problems by themselves but must enter into partnerships with different levels of government, with the private sector, and with the community.

Managing the urban environment requires both policy makers and managers to take into account the complex cross-media effects of urban pollution. Any plans to improve one environmental medium (air, water, or land), therefore, should consider the potential effects of that intervention on other media. For example, sewage treatment plants may clean up the flow of wastewater but produce large quantities of sludge that will have to be disposed of safely on land. In light of cross-media effects, relevant jurisdictions and institutions should carefully coordinate policies and activities to ensure that problems are effectively addressed. Failure to do so can result in cross-media pollution problems as well as a loss of resources spent on ineffective actions (e.g., investments in surface drainage without parallel improvements in solid waste collection and disposal, or the development of a sewage treatment plant without parallel control of industrial pollution).

Human Security Issues

In the Global Environmental Change and Human Security Project's Science Plan, Lonergan (1999) has proposed that human security is achieved when "individuals and communities:

• have the options necessary to end, mitigate, or adapt to threats to their human, environmental, and social rights;

• have the capacity and freedom to exercise these options; and

• actively participate in attaining these options."

Many cities can greatly improve human security in all of these areas by offering better economic opportunities, more avenues for political participation, and greater access to education, health care, cultural opportunities, and infrastructure. However, the dynamics of urbanization and environmental change can undermine particularly the first condition for human security.

The main human security issues that have emerged from urbanized environmental challenges are:
a) greater vulnerability of the urban poor;
b) problems of inadequate access to basic services;
c) exposure to natural and anthropogenic risks; and
d) insecurity from global environmental threats.

Vulnerability of the urban poor: Recent estimates suggest that one-quarter to one-third of all urban households in the world live in absolute poverty (UNCHS, 2001). Poverty interacts with the urban environment in two ways: the actions of low-income groups have consequences for the environment, and the poor are disproportionately affected by many environmental problems. Briefly, some of the effects of poor groups on the urban environment are:

• Migration - In developing countries, due to decreasing livelihood opportunities in rural
areas, it is often the rural poor who migrate to cities and accelerate urban population growth. This accelerated growth stresses the ability of municipalities to provide environmental services as well as to collect and treat wastes.

• Squatting - Poverty combined with dysfunctional land markets in many developing cities often results in the growth of illegal settlements. Often, these settlements are located on land that is environmentally sensitive or hazard-prone. The development of irregular settlements also makes it difficult to efficiently provide squatters with access to environmental services and infrastructure.

• Lack of options - When services and infrastructure are not available or are too costly, low-income households and neighborhoods may be forced to act in ways that harm the environment and themselves. For example, if solid waste is not regularly collected, then it may be dumped or burnt, contributing to the spread of disease vectors, air pollution, and flooding.

The poor are more seriously affected by a range of urban environmental problems. Foremost among the environmental concerns of the urban poor are health problems resulting from a substandard living environment that does not protect them from exposure to human excreta and other wastes, indoor air pollution, or natural hazards. Intra-urban studies confirm that the mortality and morbidity from gastro-intestinal and respiratory infections and malnutrition are significantly higher for the urban poor than for other urban residents. So too are the resulting costs of health care and productivity losses. Among the urban poor there are several particularly vulnerable groups: children, women, adolescents, cottage industry workers, the disabled, and the elderly. These groups are particularly exposed because they lack the economic ability to invest in mitigating measures and to pay for services, knowledge about alternatives, and the political strength to push for environmental improvements. They also tend to spend more time at home where exposure to polluted water, poor indoor air quality, disease vectors, crowded conditions, and poor sanitation may be the greatest. In industrialized countries, this inequitable exposure to environmental risks has helped spawn the "environmental justice" movement, which, in recent years, has gained momentum in developing countries with the growth of non-governmental organizations focusing on environmental issues and grass roots citizen's groups working to improve their environments.

The poor are most affected by environmental risks in cities for a variety of reasons. The first has to do with location. The neighborhoods or areas where poor people are forced to live are often undesirable pieces of land because they are located near industrial areas, are exposed to high levels of air and/or water pollution, and may be more subject to damage by natural hazards. Second, poor communities often lack the political power to pressure for a cleaner environment or to obtain environmental services such as a clean and reliable water supply, sanitation, waste collection, and drainage. Finally, the poor often cannot afford coping mechanisms used by more affluent members of society to mitigate negative environmental impacts (e.g., using pumps to evacuate flood waters, taking vacations out of the city during severe air pollution days, or drinking bottled water).

Access to basic services: The most critical urban infrastructure and services from an environmental perspective are: the water and sanitation systems, solid waste management, drainage, and transportation. A set of important environmental problems occurs, mostly with negative health consequences, when people do not have adequate access to these facilities and when their quality is poor.

Approximately 220 million city dwellers around the world do not have access to safe drinking water near their homes and 420 million urban residents do not have access to adequate sanitation. Although 70% of the urban population has access to some form of sanitation, only about 40% are connected to sewers. In poorer cities, the pollutant that takes the highest toll on health is human waste. The World Health Organization estimates that 3.2 million children under the age of five die each year in the developing world from diarrheal diseases, largely because of poor sanitation, contaminated drinking water, and related problems of food hygiene. An estimated two million fewer children would die from diarrheal diseases each year if all people had access to adequate water and sanitation facilities. Infectious and parasitic diseases linked to water quality and quantity are the third leading cause of productive years being lost to health problems in the developing world. Diarrheal death rates are typically about 60% lower among children who live in households with adequate water and sanitation facilities than among those in homes without such facilities (Leitmann, 1999).

From one-half to two-thirds of household solid waste in lower-income cities is not collected (WRI, 1996). At the same time, solid waste management consumes 20-40% of municipal budgets in poorer cities (UNCHS, 1996). Uncollected waste is then informally dumped and/or burnt in low-income neighborhoods. This situation provides a breeding ground for disease-carrying pests and causes localized air pollution. The lack of basic solid waste services in crowded, low-income neighborhoods is an important contributor to disease among the poor, though much less so than the pathogens associated with poor water and sanitation. In wealthier cities, collection rates improve and approach 100%; however, as the volume grows, the waste composition changes, creating disposal problems.

Inadequate storm water drainage has a number of negative impacts. Flooding that is exacerbated by poor drainage can result in death due to drowning, burial in landslides, or collapsing houses. Flooding results in economic harm through property damage, road congestion, disruption of public services, and lost employment. In many poorer cities, drains remove sewage and sullage (gray water). Flooding can spread wastewater in communities, with resulting health effects. Standing water, resulting from poorly drained rainwater, provides ideal conditions for outbreaks of insect-borne diseases.

Table 1. Options for Improving Human Security

Source: Modified from Leitmann, 1999

Insufficient access to safe and reliable transportation can be a major environmental problem. Increasing motorization, poorly functioning public transportation, badly maintained roads, lack of walkways and cycle paths, poor traffic management, and lack of enforcement and education contribute to traffic congestion, road accidents, and air pollution, with associated health and economic losses. The cost of road accidents in developing countries, two-thirds of which occur in urban areas, is as high as 1-2% of GDP, according to the World Health Organization, reflecting high fatality and injury rates and property damage.

Environmental hazards: Environmental hazards come from natural and human sources, as well as the interaction of the two. Almost two billion people were affected by disasters during the 1990s, 80% of whom lived in Asia (UNCHS, 2001). Many cities are subject to significant loss of life and property from natural sources such as earthquakes and floods, as well as wildfires, tropical storms, mudslides, and volcanic eruptions. For example, the average annual loss from earthquakes in Turkey, mostly in urban areas, is estimated at 0.8% of GNP. Up to 50 of the fastest growing cities in the developing world are located in earthquake zones (World Bank, 2002). Damage from the 1988 flooding in the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan region was estimated at over $900 million, and the 1998 flooding in Wuhan left 200,000 people stranded while causing an estimated $480 million in damage.

Human sources of environmental risk in cities include accidents caused by industries, municipal facilities, traffic, and fires. Over the last four decades, the number of human-made disasters has tripled (UNCHS, 2001). Perhaps the most notorious urban industrial accident was the 1984 disaster in Bhopal that claimed thousands of lives and led to the destruction of a swathe of homes and industrial facilities. This hazard was exacerbated by the failure to control settlement around the chemical plant. In 1992, powerful explosions caused by liquid hexane that was dumped into the municipal sewer system killed over 200 people, injured 1,000 others, and damaged homes, streets, and commercial buildings in Guadalajara. Traffic accidents claim thousands of lives in some of the world's largest cities each year. The situation is particularly striking in developing cities with fewer cars per capita but higher accident rates. In India, there are more fatalities each year from road accidents than in the U.S., although India has one-twentieth the number of motorized vehicles (UNCHS, 1996). The loss of life and property from fires that are intentionally or accidentally set plagues virtually every city in the world. The problem is intensified by insufficient preventive measures (e.g., public education and enforced building codes) and low emergency-response capacity (e.g., inadequate fire-fighting capability and medical facilities).

Human actions can deepen and widen the impact of many natural hazards. Loss of life and property from earthquakes is heightened when unsafe buildings are constructed in areas of high seismic activity or when cities are not prepared to handle emergencies. Similarly, the damage from flooding is intensified when people settle in floodplains, drainage is inadequate, or uncollected solid waste is disposed of in existing drains.

Global threats: While many of the environmental effects of urban areas tend to be local, cities can have important consequences for environmental problems of a global nature and can also be seriously affected by global problems. Examples include:

• Greenhouse gases - Cities consume 80% of the world's fossil fuels. Consequently, cities such as Canberra, Chicago, and Los Angeles have carbon dioxide emissions that are 6-9 times greater per capita than the world's average and 25 times (or more) greater than poorer cities such as Dhaka (UNCHS, 1996). One estimate suggests that 40% of total CO2 emissions in North America comes from 50 metropolitan areas (WRI, 1996).

• Sea level rise - If cities are a primary contributor to global warming, they can also be its victim. Most U.S. coastal cities, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Hamburg, London, St. Petersburg, Venice, Lagos, Bombay, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Sydney are among the places that would be seriously affected by flooding due to a rise in sea levels.

• Climate change - Projections of the impact of changing global climate on European cities suggest that Berlin will experience a warmer and wetter climate that could exacerbate smog and acid rain, Volgograd could suffer from spring flooding and summer dust storms, and Liverpool could be affected by malfunctioning sewers due to the impact of increased rainfall on its tidal river.

• Pollution of international waters - Land-based sources of marine pollution have been an important cause of degrading international waters. Urban waste usually constitutes the major component of these land-based sources.

Finally, although physically more remote, even the preservation of biodiversity has two important urban dimensions. First, much of the demand for threatened plant and animal species comes from the urban economy. Second, the political, financial, and intellectual support for protecting biodiversity is usually based in cities. Just think how many wildlife, parkland conservation, and other environmental groups are headquartered and have their membership base in urban areas.

Options for Improving Human Security

Cities can and should address these environment-based threats to human security. A range of policy and investment options exist for improving access to environmental infrastructure and services, reducing the risks posed by environmental hazards, and diminishing the contribution that cities make to global environmental problems. These options are summarized in Table 1. The broader issue of the vulnerability of the urban poor needs to be tackled by a three-pronged approach: a) a pro-poor orientation in the options for solving other security problems (e.g., slum upgrading and lifeline utility pricing as alternatives for increasing access to services and infrastructure); b) growth-with-equity strategies that create an enabling environment for more urban poor to reduce their economic vulnerability; and c) political rights and participation so that the problems of poverty are articulated and recognized in the political arena.

These options for increasing security can also be viewed as sets of policy instruments (e.g., regulatory; economic incentives; direct investment; property rights; land use controls; and information, education, and research). Each is briefly described with selected examples of their application in cities.

Instruments for environmental regulation consist of discharge standards, permits and licences, land and water use controls, and public health codes. They are essential for avoiding or reducing the degradation of air, water, and land resources. Regulation requires both rules and an effective system of monitoring and enforcement. By themselves, regulatory instruments can be inefficient and costly to enforce. On the positive side, they yield predictable results and are necessary to establish a baseline of acceptable behavior. Santiago (Chile) uses environmental regulation to cope with air pollution emergencies: in a state of emergency, 80% of vehicles that run on leaded gas are banned from circulating and factories that are major emitters of air pollutants can be closed down. In addition, all new vehicles must use lead-free gasoline.

Economic incentives for managing the urban environment include user charges, resource pricing, pollution taxes, congestion charges, grants and subsidies, tax credits, rebates, and fines. These instruments often involve applying direct costs on polluters (the Polluter Pays Principle) such as industrial effluent charges for air or water pollution based on the amount and toxicity of discharges. However, they can also involve indirect charges. For example, the taxation of fuel use can be a powerful indirect instrument for controlling air pollution because of the relationship between fuel use and emissions. In comparison with regulations, economic instruments are more efficient and flexible. They can also increase equity, generate revenue, and continuously exert pressure on polluters. Economic instruments are rarely used alone; they typically rely on and reinforce regulations. For example, the city of Brisbane (Australia) has a set of regulations to protect the rich biodiversity of its bushlands. These are supplemented with two economic instruments: a ratepayer fee is levied which raises over $5 million a year for bushland acquisition and maintenance, and landowners who agree to protect private bushland from development can receive up to a 50% reduction in their general ratepayer levy.

Direct investment is one of the most powerful tools that a city can use to protect, improve, or rehabilitate the environment. Revenues can be raised for municipal investment in a range of environmental infrastructure and services, such as water purification and distribution, wastewater treatment, drainage, sanitary landfilling, and public transportation. Cities can also acquire land to increase recreational opportunities and protect sensitive ecosystems. Additionally, municipalities can encourage other stakeholders to make investments that improve environmental management. For example, the environmental and other investments in upgrading slums can unleash private resources for environmental improvement. Some of the key investment options are summarized in Table 1.

Clarifying property rights can greatly improve management of air, water, and land resources. Better definition of water rights can be used to promote water conservation, defining and allocating discharge rights can help control air and water pollution, and providing secure land tenure can increase both public and private investment in housing and infrastructure improvements. For example, the opportunity to own land gave slum residents in Solo (Indonesia) the incentive to upgrade their plots and neighborhoods, resulting in key improvements to water supply, drainage, sanitation, solid waste management, and urban greening.

There are a range of land use controls that can be used to manage the urban environment including: environmental zoning, acquisition, expropriation, easements, land exchanges, purchase or transfer of development rights, land readjustment, and guided land development. Land use controls can be effectively combined with infrastructure provision to guide development away from environmentally sensitive areas; this was done in metropolitan Jakarta to protect the city's key watershed. Land use controls can also be blended with investment in public transportation and roads to reduce congestion and air pollution as was done in Curitiba, Brazil.

The final set of tools - information, education, and research - is essential for developing awareness and knowledge about the urban environment. Information about a city's environmental situation can be acquired using techniques such as rapid assessment, geographic and land information systems, and environmental assessment. Access to this and other information, via educational initiatives, underpins public consciousness about the urban environment. Research is essential to close knowledge gaps about the urban environment. Good research should yield information on the characteristics of media-specific environmental problems, the dynamics of environmental degradation, and the magnitude and distribution of impacts.

Policy instruments are more effective when they are used in mutually supportive packages. The way that various instruments are selected and used to reinforce each other will depend on a number of factors, including:

• urgency of the problem that needs to be addressed;

• political, social, and institutional acceptability of the solution;

• cost and anticipated benefits;

• degree to which low-income and vulnerable groups benefit;

• compatibility with existing administrative, legal, political, and fiscal regimes;

• ease of monitoring and enforcement; and

• harmony with the city's overall development strategy.

Another way of considering which policy options are most appropriate is to link them to objectives that can differ according to a city's level of development. For example, a low-income city may place greater priority on the objective of improving citizen access to environmental services and infrastructure. Thus, it would pursue policy options such as regulation (enforcing the legalization of connections to networks), direct investment (obtaining funds to expand networks), and land use controls (regularizing spontaneous settlements to lower the costs of infrastructure and service provision).

Beyond these factors, several principles can be applied to assist in selecting policy instruments for managing the environment. These principles are:

• look for win-win solutions where two or more problems are solved or where both the environment and the economy benefit;

• choose the options that address the environmental problems of the poor and vulnerable groups in a city; and

• seek cost-effective approaches that pay their way.

These principles are elaborated with examples below.

Win-win situations occur when a policy option or package solves more than one problem or meets both environmental and economic objectives. Curitiba (Brazil) is famous for its win-win approach to problems. For example, the problems of flooding, housing exposed to environmental hazards, and lack of green space were solved by a program to resettle riverbank dwellers, create artificial lakes, and turn these spaces into parks. Floods are now a thing of the past and green space has risen from 0.5 to 50m3 per citizen during a 20-year period of rapid population growth. Win-win options that can yield both environmental and economic returns include incentives to support low-polluting or environment-related industries, investment in energy efficiency and water conservation measures, modernization of industrial equipment and processes, and recycling/re-use of wastes.

As many urban environmental problems disproportionately affect the poor and vulnerable who are least able to cope with or escape from risks, environmental solutions should, at a minimum, benefit this segment of society. In fact, a triple-win approach is advocated in the urban policies of international aid agencies: urban development should help to alleviate poverty, be environmentally sustainable, and contribute to economic productivity. One way of ensuring that low-income groups benefit is to target a package of management options on the environmental problems of low-income neighborhoods.

The benefits and costs of policy options being considered should be as explicit as possible. In the case of win-win solutions, both environmental and economic benefits should be calculated. Distributional consequences (who benefits) should also be estimated in order to determine whether the poor will gain or lose. On the cost side, interventions that match cost to users' ability and willingness to pay should be favored. Policy options that pay their own way by recovering costs are inherently more financially sustainable than those that must be subsidized. However, cost recovery can conflict with an emphasis on serving the poor so targeted subsidies or cross-subsidization may be warranted in particular cases. Overall, the identification of options requires creativity so that the full range of costs and benefits is considered.

Conclusion

The pace and style of urbanization have increased human exposure to a number of environmental security risks. The dynamics of urbanization and environmental change are driven by a number of factors: the quality of consumption, production, and economic growth; a city's ability to cope with population growth; relations between ecosystems and land use patterns; and governance arrangements. These dynamics have resulted in a set of human security issues: increased vulnerability of the urban poor, problems of inadequate access to services, greater exposure to natural and anthropogenic risks, and heightened global environmental threats. Fortunately, the urbanizing world can draw from a range of policy options to increase security, manage the environment, and improve the quality of life in cities.

References and Key Readings

Leitmann, J. (1999). Sustaining cities: Environmental planning and management in urban design. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Lonergan, S.C. (1999). Global environmental change and human security (GECHS) science plan. International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) Report No.11 Bonn, Germany: IHDP.

McGranahan, G., Jacobi, P., Songsore, J., Surjadi, C., and Kjellén, M. (2001). The citizens at risk: From urban sanitation to sustainable cities. London: Earthscan.

Rosan, C., Ruble, B., and Tulchin, J. (2000). Urbanization, population, environment, and security. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS) (1996). An urbanizing world: Global report on human settlements. London: Oxford University Press.

United Nations Human Settlements Programme (2001). The state of the world's cities report 2001. Nairobi: UNCHS.

United Nations Population Division (1999). World urbanization prospects: The 1999 revision. New York: United Nations.

World Resources Institute (WRI) (1996). World resources 1996-97: The urban environment. New York: Oxford University Press.

World Bank (2002). Incubators for change? Urban areas as centers for innovation and transformation, Chapter 4 in World Development Report 2003. New York: Oxford University Press.

Key Web Sites:

Environment and 10rbanization journal
www.iied.org/human.html

International Center for Local Environmental Initiatives
www.iclei.org

The Urban Environmental Management Virtual Library
www.gdrc.org/uem

UN Human Settlements Programme
www.unchs.org

Josef Leitmann
World Bank

2. Cities, Consumption, and the Generation of Waste

Global Environmental Change and Urban Growth

Rapid urban growth induces global environmental change, particularly when it comes to production, consumption, and the generation of waste. According to the United Nations, most of the world's population will be living in cities by the year 2030. In developing countries, urban agglomerations are growing at twice the rate of overall population growth. Each day, approximately 160,000 people migrate from rural to urban areas. The estimated urban growth rate for more developed regions is 0.5%, compared to 2.7% in less developed regions, and 4.5% in least developed regions.

One of the consequences of this urban explosion is the generation of an enormous amount of waste. Despite the many social, environmental, and economic differences between large cities, there are some obvious similarities in terms of environmental quality. Cities worldwide produce much more garbage and other waste than they can manage. Often, solid waste is transported over long distances, transferred into other regions, or not collected at all. Many cities in developing countries fail to collect significant proportions of the cities' household waste. In most South American cities, 20 to 50% of the household waste is not collected (Ferguson & Maurer, 1996: 120). Similar figures are reported from other parts of the world. In Calcutta, about 82% of the waste is collected, while other municipalities within the metropolitan area of Calcutta only collect between 20 and 50% of the waste generated (Hasan and Khan, 1999: 104). The overall efficiency of waste collection in India is reported to be 72.5% (Gupta et al., 1998: 139). The steady increase in per capita consumption makes it difficult to keep up with the growing volume of waste.

Adequate solid waste management is still lacking in most city administrations even though waste has direct impacts on human well-being. It can bring about serious threats to human health through the lack of waste collection, incineration, or leachate from waste dumps. Often, land use conflicts arise when the government decides on new locations for sanitary landfills or for the operation of incinerators. In most cases, the local population is opposed to having sanitary landfills in their neighborhoods. Environmental awareness and social mobilization
is a growing issue, particularly in the South. The environmental justice movement specifically addresses the unequal distribution of environmental burdens from waste management in the community. Bullard (1994), Pulido (1996), Markham and Rufa (1997), among others, highlight the decisive role of race, class, and poverty levels as determinants for hazardous waste site locations.

This article discusses urbanization and the generation of solid waste under the perspective of global environmental change and its link to human security in developing countries. It examines, in more detail, the case of São Paulo, Brazil, a city of extremes in population size and the production of goods and services, but also in terms of socio-economic disparities. São Paulo is experiencing severe environmental health problems with water and soil contamination, air pollution, floods and landslides during the rainy season, and increasing generation and irregular dumping of garbage.

Despite being the largest production centre in Brazil, São Paulo has extremely unequal living conditions.

Figure 1. Growth in Total Consumption Expenditures, 1970 to 1995

Source: The State of World Population 2001
http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2001/english/ch03.html

It has a large and growing number of socially excluded people. Nevertheless, São Paulo is experiencing social mobilization. The irregular squatting movement is the most visible and effective, demanding solutions for the lack of housing, public services, and basic infrastructure. Recently, segments of the no or low-income population, such as the informal recycling sector, have become more organized. This article discusses a current proposal for alternative waste management in São Paulo, incorporating the socially excluded who are already in charge of informal waste recovery. All over the world we find examples of waste recycling generating income. This creates opportunities for change and provides a possibility for advances in our global environmental agenda with a redirection of current unsustainable trends.

Consequences of Consumption in an Uneven World

Urbanization adds to global environmental change because it is based on energy intensive production and lifestyles, resulting in significant environmental and health impacts. The generation of waste has become an urgent issue that needs to be addressed. So far, very little has been done to reduce waste generation or to stimulate waste recovery. Since the 1950s, mass consumption on a global scale has increased significantly. Western consumption patterns have been transferred to the developing world as symbols of progress. Worldwide private and public consumption has grown from US $10.2 trillion in 1970 to US $17 trillion in 1995 (see Figure 1).

However, there is a large disparity between the consumption levels in rich and in poor countries.
The following figure highlights the existing differences in access to energy resources and specific consumer goods between the wealthiest and the poorest. Consumption rates are still highest in industrial countries and the population in developing countries generates only 24% of the total private consumption expenditure. In 70 countries with almost a billion persons, per capita GDP is lower than it was 25 years ago (see Figure 2).

High consumption levels generally correlate with intense resource use and waste production. A person in regions considered of High Human Development generates up to 2 kg of waste per day. Among the largest waste producers are industrialized nations, in particular the United States and Canada, with respectively 2 and 1.7 kg per person per day, approximately double that generated among the urban population in Latin America (1 kg/person/day), Hong Kong (1.01 kg/person/day), or Guangzhou, China (1.09 kg/person/day) (Chung and Poo, 1998: 207). According to Cotton et al. (1999), cities in low-income countries generate on average between 300 and 600 grams of waste per person per day. Over the past 10 to 15 years, per capita solid waste generation has increased in almost every city around the world.

Household waste can be quite different in moisture content and biodegradability. Waste in high-income countries usually has a moisture content of 20 to 40%, whereas in low-income countries it varies between 40 and 80% (Cotton et al., 1999: 3). In Brazil, approximately 38% of the total weight of the garbage generated can be recycled (on average, the garbage composition is 25% paper, 4% metal, 3% glass, and 6 to 7% plastics) (Grimberg and Blauth, 1998). Changing lifestyle and consumer attitude, however, are responsible for an increase in the percentage of recyclable waste in developing countries. In India, for example, the proportion of recyclables in household waste has increased from 9.6% in the early 1970s to 17.2% in 1995 (Gupta et al., 1998: 141).

Figure 2. Comparing Consumption Levels

Source: The State of World Population 2001

As a consequence, particularly in large cities in the South, waste scavenging and recycling activities are increasing. A case study in Guangzhou, China indicates a yearly increase of between 8 and 10% in the generation of municipal solid waste. With economic globalization, consumption patterns in the South are becoming increasingly similar to those in the North. One-way, non-biodegradable packaging of food and beverages are on the rise. The disposal of packaging adds to the city's waste accumulation, to the depletion of non-renewable resources (oil, gas, and minerals), and to the exhaustion of the renewable resource base due to soil erosion, air, and water pollution. Environmentally friendly packaging could definitely reduce these environmental impacts.

Waste Generation and Health Threats

Waste can be disposed of in different forms: open dumping, landfilling, or incineration. All of these forms cause direct threats to human health through air, water, and/or soil contamination. Other management alternatives are recycling, composting, and waste minimization. Currently, the most widespread waste disposal form is curbside dumping, with sanitary landfills prevailing in the North and open garbage dumps in the South. Landfills create a number of environmental problems and costs. Besides using up space, they release carbon dioxide and methane gas, which contribute to the greenhouse effect. In India, for example, landfill emissions are the third largest contributors to global warming (Gupta et al., 1998). Garbage dumps, particularly if uncontrolled, are also associated with environmental hazards due to toxic leachate and contamination of drinking water sources. Furthermore, space is usually rare and expensive in large cities. As a result, garbage is transported over large distances to waste dumps which are often located in less populated municipalities.

Incineration is also a common procedure to reduce waste, despite strong opposition from local communities in response to pollution and potential health risks. Local politicians, particularly in mega-cities, often see incinerators as an attractive alternative to space intensive landfills. However, incineration causes severe impacts, such as the generation of toxic ashes and air pollution, and is also a waste of resources. Incineration of plastics (Polyvinyl Chloride, PVC and Polyethylene Terephthalate, PET) releases dioxins, furanes, and heavy metals, among others, which are linked to the development of cancer and damage to the human immune system. Further, developing countries usually have to opt for less expensive incineration facilities, which usually means less environmentally friendly technology. Finally, neither incineration nor landfilling is a labor-intensive process. They do not create employment, but rather eliminate jobs from the recycling sector by burning the resources that could be recovered.

Irregular garbage dumping is a growing problem in developing countries. It reflects a situation where a significant percentage of households do not have access to adequate, basic infrastructure (sewage collection, drinking water) and services (waste collection, street cleaning). Often the municipal budget is insufficient to cope with rapid population growth and increasing costs for waste collection and disposal. Irregular housing conditions and urban squatting are widespread. According to a United Nations prognosis, half the population of most Asian cities is now living in slums or squatter settlements. In some African cities, up to 90% of the urban population lives under inadequate and risky conditions. In Dar-es-Salam, for example, 70% of city residents live in unplanned areas, most of which are not regularly serviced with basic infrastructure and garbage collection (Halla and Majani, 1999).

Waste that is not collected produces serious and expensive environmental health impacts. It contaminates water and intensifies the effects of flooding and slope instability, as well as propagating insects, rodents, and fungus, which transmit infectious diseases. Many dwellers regularly burn their uncollected waste, which further adds to air contamination. Inadequate open dumping is a common problem in many developing countries and is derived from the lack of other alternatives, the scarcity of human resources and public funds, and a general lack of environmental awareness. It creates contamination, often in fragile environments such as mangroves, dune systems, drinking water catchments, and floodplains, posing a threat to human health.

Opportunities to Improve Human Security

There are innovative pilot recycling programs from which some lessons can be learned. The municipality of Quito, Ecuador, for example, has extended the garbage collection in previously unserviced neighborhoods through small-scale enterprises created by the residents who are in charge of garbage collection. The revenues from the sale of the recyclables go to a fund supporting improvements in the neighborhood (Hernández et al., 1999). The pilot program has contributed to income generation for the poor and improves public health. Within the Clean and Green Madras City Project, an alliance between the public sector, an NGO, and the community in Chennai, India has provided the opportunity to rehabilitate 250 street kids through their participation in a recycling scheme (Baud et al., 2001). Curitiba, in South Brazil, has introduced the "Purchase of Garbage Program," running since the early 1990s and involving more than 22,000 families from low-income households. Participants sell their bags of garbage in return for bus tickets and agricultural and dairy products. Through this program the city has become cleaner.

In Brazil, as in many other countries in the South, for many decades the informal sector has recovered resources such as metal, paper, cardboard, and glass from the domestic waste stream. Recently, the rise in unemployment and the lack of financial resources have driven more and more socially excluded people into activities related to recycling. On the other hand, a nation-wide initiative from the private sector (CEMPRE Compromisso Empresarial para Reciclagem) is promoting the recycling industry. They provide specific credit lines, incentives, and technical support to businesses interested in the sector. Large companies already perceive the attractive economic gains from this activity. Rhodia-Ster, for example, produces PET bottles and also capitalizes on the recycling of these bottles. The number of recycling firms in the formal sector in Brazil has increased from 95 in 1996 to 232 establishments in the year 2000, with 5,398 persons directly involved in the formal recycling sector by the end of 2000 (IBGE, 2002). The number of municipalities implementing resource recovery programs is also on the rise, while attempts to reduce the generation of waste in the first place are almost nonexistent. The challenges to find environmentally sound solutions for our solid waste problem still remain as urgent as ever.

The prevailing economic and social systems are inherently based on inequity and unequal development. Social exclusion is an essential component of our society and economy where wealth is, to a large extent, based on the exploitation of others. The term explains a situation that actually goes beyond poverty and consists of the separation of individuals or groups from the rest of society through economic deprivation as well as social and cultural segregation. Social exclusion was first described in Great Britain during the 1970s, when growing unemployment, particularly long-term unemployment, started to become a serious threat to the functioning of society. In less developed countries, a significant proportion of the population is socially excluded, which translates into:

• disadvantage in accessing education, professional training, information, and quality health care;

• low or no income;

• exposure to high risks due to precariousness and illegality of living conditions (e.g., occupation of steep slopes or floodplains);

• low quality or lack of public infrastructure and services (including the nonexistence of leisure and recreational infrastructure);

• high crime and violence rates; and

• domination through paternalistic and populist political measures, reinforcing the state of exclusion.

The most excluded citizens make their living through recycling leftovers of consumption from
the affluent society. There are many different forms in which children, women, and men work with domestic solid waste. In countries with less strict environmental regulations and large income disparities, families often live on the garbage dump. Recyclables are also separated in the street, once the garbage is placed for collection. Most valuable resources, such as aluminum cans, glass, and paper are removed from the bin. This activity involves health risks, creates littering in the streets, and consequently increases public spending. A third alternative for waste scavengers is organized informal recycling through small-scale business, neighborhood associations, and co-operatives.

Recycling is often the only remaining possibility to provide subsistence for the most impoverished. However, few governments take the opportunity to create employment and mitigate environmental problems through recycling. Particularly in under-serviced, marginal residential areas this could significantly contribute to improve the livelihood of the poor.

New Perspectives in Solid Waste Management:
The Case of São Paulo

The city of São Paulo (1,525 km2) is located in the southeast of Brazil. Its population increased from 6 million in 1970 to approximately 10.4 million in 2000 and it is the core of the world's third largest metropolitan agglomeration. Arguably, São Paulo is a global city, the most important finance and service centre in South America that is surrounded by other major industrial production centres. According to the 2000 census, 870,000 people were living in 612 slums (favelas), 182,000 in multi-family housing without proper sanitation (cortiços), and another 8,704 were homeless in São Paulo. Besides these figures, there are another 4,600 illegal settlements with inadequate sanitary conditions and lack of services in São Paulo (IBGE, 2000).

Although the numbers are much smaller than during the 1970s and 1980s, São Paulo still attracts landless and homeless people who can no longer sustain their livelihood through agriculture. In the city, most jobs available to them are in the informal service sector. Automation in industry is further excluding workers from employment. The number of street vendors and scavengers has increased significantly over the past 15 years. The number of dependents on informal activities in São Paulo has grown by 34% during the 1990s, with 48.8% of the total labor force being in the informal sector in 1999 (Martins and Dombrovski, 2001).

Figure 3. Map of São Paulo, Brazil

The negative social and environmental impacts from rapid urbanization are considerable in São Paulo where infrastructure has not accompanied the fast growth rate of the past decades. A significant proportion of its population is unattended in terms of access to basic infrastructure and public services, including waste collection. The population living in irregular housing, more frequently found in the periphery of the city, improvise in order to satisfy their basic needs, often at the expense of the environment. Untreated sewage discharge and waste disposal are major problems in São Paulo, specifically in the outskirts where recently population has expanded south of the city into the drinking water catchment of Lake Billings and Lake Guarapiranga, undermining the city's drinking water supply. There are already water shortages during the dry season.

Figure 4: Recycling Centre in Pedra sobre Pedra

Figure 5: Manual press engineered by members of the community

As in other countries, consumption has changed drastically during the past decade. Today, the metropolitan region of São Paulo (17.3 million inhabitants, including the municipality of São Paulo) produces an average of 20,150 tons of waste/day (IBGE, 2000). On a per person basis, waste generation has grown from 0.89kg/person/day in 1991, to 0.99kg/person/day in 1994, to a high of 1.16kg/person/day in 2001. The amount of packaging has grown dramatically. In particular, one-way packaging has increased, with most beverages also being bottled in PET or aluminum containers, or plastic and aluminum-foiled cartons. The number of people consuming processed kaged food is quickly expanding. These products tend to be cheaper and more attractive than environmentally-friendly ones. As a result, the percentage of non-biodegradable waste is increasing.

Landfills are the major final destination (77%) for solid waste produced in São Paulo. There is now only one controlled dumping site in use (Aterro Bandeirantes), in the far northeast of the city. This means that collected garbage travels large distances before being deposited. The existing incinerator was closed in April 2002, due to inefficient technology and increasing pressure from the local population and environmental groups. Since the 1990s, incineration had been considered an attractive alternative in addressing the increasing waste dilemma. Public opposition and cost have kept public administrators from investing further in this technology. Today, 21% of the collected waste is composted and an insignificant percentage (1.6%) is officially recycled. There are no figures to account for the amount of waste that is recycled by the informal sector.

Recently, a Recycling Forum (Fórum Recicla São Paulo) has been created in São Paulo, with more than 45 active recycling groups (see Figure 3). Among these groups are community associations and co-operatives such as COOPAMARE, which already number 200 associated street collectors. In some neighborhoods they collect the material from door to door at residences, apartment buildings, offices, and small-scale businesses. On average, the co-operative recovers more than four metric tons of resources every day.

The Forum stimulates co-operation among collectors and facilitates the collection, separation, and trade of recyclables. All material that is collected, separated, and compressed is sold to dealers and wholesalers in town or from other cities. The Recycling Forum aims at improving working conditions and providing new employment as well as at expanding environmental education activities. So far, major achievements of the Forum lie in increasing community empowerment, citizenship awareness, and improving environmental health.

The city of São Paulo has signalled a commitment to supporting the informal recycling sector with
the construction of nine recycling centres. The administration is aiming at a recycling rate of 4% of all garbage generated in the city during 2003. Nevertheless, since negotiations started in mid 2001, most advances have been of a rhetorical nature rather than practical actions. So far, several seminars to discuss waste management have been organized but little support has been given to structure, educate, and train the sector.

Most of the advances in 'informal' resource recovery have been made through voluntary work. The scarce resources from NGOs and small-scale credits have further contributed to expand the activities of individual groups. Among the 45 mentioned recycling initiatives is the project from the neighborhood association Pedra sobre Pedra. They began with door-to-door collection in their unserviced community, then expanded into collecting and separating recyclables from small enterprises, schools, and housing complexes, and, through perseverance, the group has achieved improvements in infrastructure allowing larger amounts of waste to be recycled by a growing number of participants, mainly women (Gutberlet and Takahashi, 2002) (see Figures 4 and 5).

Pedra sobre Pedra is now one of the driving forces for the promotion of the Recycling Forum and its involvement in the city's new waste management plan. The Recycling Forum has made some progress in terms of strengthening the recycling activity and building up capacity to organize the sector. The network is also increasing its political power and, accordingly, is putting pressure on the local government to act more effectively. It is a major challenge to the city's administration to implement a rather innovative plan for participatory waste management based on resource recovery.

Conclusion

There is a strong relation between rapid urban growth and global environmental change. With the urban lifestyle comes an ever-growing generation of solid waste, which, in many large cities, is already undermining human security. Most domestic waste is deposited in sanitary landfills or, in the case of poor countries, at irregular dumping sites. The lack of space for new landfills is an imminent problem for most municipalities. Increasingly, public initiatives urge local governments to seriously address the issue. The environmental justice movement is just one indicator of this trend.

Recycling is an alternative form of waste management and a strategy to diminish unemployment.
It is receiving growing attention in Brazilian cities, for example in Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Santo André, Diadema, and São Paulo. However, the potential for resource recovery is still neglected and few cities embrace innovative alternative waste management based on reduction, reutilization, and recycling.

True commitment to urban sustainability should consider in practice the following:

Enhancing human security: by stimulating the generation of employment (e.g., with labor intense practices, re-use, and recycling), eliminating health risks through the introduction of sound technology, and adopting political accountability and participatory, integrated decision-making strategies (e.g., participatory budgeting).

Minimizing the impacts of global environmental change: by promoting less resource-intense lifestyles and values (questioning the right to waste resources and promoting values that respect the environment and value the bioregion), stimulating reduction, re-use, and recycling (e.g., with Eco-taxes), and by supporting the development of biodegradable products and cutting over-consumption.

Solving the waste problem requires political solutions. The case study of São Paulo highlights some important changes brought about by social movements demanding alternative solutions.
It emphasizes the general difficulties encountered to set a precedent in terms of addressing social and environmental problems from an integrated perspective. The desired changes regarding reduced resource use, minimization of waste and emissions, and increased human security and sustainability altogether depend on political change. Technical knowledge and financial resources are no longer the major limiting factors to promote urban sustainability. Human and financial resources from the public and private sector must be efficiently used to build sustainable societies. Major problems are of a political nature and essentially require a different perspective fostering horizontal and vertical co-operation among government agencies as well as between the community, the public, and the private sector. Most needed is a strongly committed approach to socially and environmentally sound urban development in order to diminish the polarizing threats of deprivation and over-consumption.

References

Baud, I., Grafakos, S., Hordijk, M., and Post, J. (2001). Quality of life and alliances in solid waste management. Contributions to urban sustainable development. Cities, 18(1), 3-12.

Bullard, R.D. (1994). Dumping in Dixie: Race, class, and environmental quality. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Cotton, A., Snel, M., and Ali, M. (1999). The challenges ahead - Solid waste management in the next millennium. Waterlines, 17(3), 2-5.

Chung, S., and Poo, C. (1998). A comparison of waste management in Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 22, 203-216.

Ferguson, B., and Maurer, C. (1996). Urban management for environmental quality in South America. Third World Planning Review, 18 (2), 117-154.

Grimberg, E., and Blauth, P. (1998). Coleta seletiva: Reciclando materiais, recilcando valores. Publicação Pólis, 31. São Paulo, Instituto Pólis.

Gupta, S., Mohan, K., Prasad, R., Gupta, S., and Kansal, A. (1998). Solid waste management in India: Options and op-portunities. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 24, 137-154.

Gutberlet, J., and Takahashi, R. (2002). Le gestion et le recyclage des ordures dans le bidonvilles. Expérience de Pedra sobre Pedra à São Paulo, Brésil. In H. Botta, C. Berdier, et J.M. Deleuil (Eds.), Enjeux de la propreté urbaine (pp. 103-121). Lausanne, Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes.

Halla, F., and Majani, B. (1999). Innovative ways for solid waste management in Dar-Es-Salaam: Toward stakeholder partnerships. Habitat International, 23 (3), 351-361.

Hasan, S., and Khan, M. A. (1999). Community-based envi-ronmental management in a megacity. Cities, 16(2), 103-110.

Hernández, O., Rawlins, B., and Schwarts, R. (1999). Voluntary recycling in Quito: Factors associated with participation in a pilot programme. Environment and Urbanisation, (11)2, 145-159.

IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística) (2000). Industrial census data: Pesquisa Industrial Annual 2002 (http://www.ibge.gov.br).

Markham, W.T., and Rufa, E. (1997). Class, race, and the dis-posal of urban waste locations of landfills, incinerators, and sewage treatment plants. Sociological Spectrum, 17, 235-248.

Martins, R., and Dombrowski, O. (2001). Mapa do trabalho informal da cidade de São Paulo. In K. Jakobsen, R. Martins, and O. Dobrowski (Org.), Mapa do trabalho informal (pp. 24-39). São Paulo, Fundação Perseu Abramo.

Nunan, F., and Satterthwaitte, D. (2001). The influence of governance on the provision of urban environmental infrastructure and services for low-income groups. International Planning Studies, 6(4), 409-426.

Pulido, L. (1996). Environmentalism and economic justice. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

UNDP United Nations Development Program (1998). Human Development Report. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Web Sites of Interest

The World Bank Group. Urban Waste Management.
www.worldbank.org/urban/solid_wm/swm_body.htm

United Nations Economic and Social Development.
www.un.org/esa

Oneworld International portal of NGOs.
www.oneworld.net

WASTE Advisers on urban environment and development. www.waste.nl

Jutta Gutberlet

University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada

AVISO is a publication of the GECHS project. Previous issues are available on the GECHS website or from the project office.

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The Global Environmental Change and Human Security (GECHS) project is a
core project of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP). The main goal of the GECHS project is to advance interdisciplinary, international research and policy efforts in the area of human security and environmental change. The GECHS project promotes collaborative and participatory research, and encourages
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Opinions expressed here are solely those of the authors and do not reflect an official position of the IHDP, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the University of Michigan, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars or the International Development Research Centre (IDRC)

This publication is supported by:

through a cooperative agreement with the University of Michigan Population Fellows Program

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and the

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Support by the University of Victoria is gratefully acknowledged

prepared for the

Global Environmental Change and
Human Security Project

by

Jutta Gutberlet

University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada

and Josef Leitmann,

World Bank

Advisory Board for Aviso

Steve Lonergan - Chair
University of Victoria

Geoffrey D. Dabelko
Woodrow Wilson Center

Mike Brklacich
Carleton University

Richard Matthew
University of California, Irvine