This paper describes the dramatic changes in the size of the world’s urban population and of its largest cities over the last 100 years. This includes the almost tenfold increase in the average size of the world’s 100 largest cities between 1900 and 2000. It also describes the changing distribution of cities between regions.

In China, as in many other countries undergoing rapid economic growth, increasing socio-economic inequalities and environmental damage are the main threats to sustainable urbanization. Drawing on international experiences, this paper describes the key issues in urban change in China and identifies the types of policy approaches that could support more sustainable urbanization. Urbanization and urban growth in China are closely linked to economic growth strategies and their uneven spatial dimension. Hence, despite the fact that China is one of the few countries in the world implementing a household registration system with the explicit aim of directly managing population distribution, rural-urban migration, much of it temporary or unregistered, is currently the main factor contributing to urbanization. The paper presents a number of policy options, the first of which would bring economic benefits, the second environmental benefits and the last three equity benefits. None of these options involve prohibiting or promoting migration; rather, they aim to improve the quality of migration for the migrants themselves, their home areas, the environment and the economy.

This paper argues that the dimension of territory or space is indispensable to a development strategy and that regions, as the platform for human society rather than artificial division between rural and urban, should provide the unit of analysis in the development process. While macro-level reforms can provide a sound policy framework and effective incentives, it is at the regional level that appropriate interventions can be identified and implemented. This paper suggests a general framework for such an approach, and illustrates it through a case study of a district in Nepal where conscious efforts have been made to improve linkages between rural and urban areas through the Rural Urban Partnership Programme, RUPP.

A decade ago, public and private water and sanitation were typically presented as very distinct alternatives.

This paper explores the nature and role of non-farm employment, access to urban markets and migration in the livelihoods of the residents of two villages in Vietnam’s Red River delta. The case study province, Ha Nam, presents many of the challenges that the region and the nation will need to address in the near future. With growing population density and land scarcity, poverty reduction and local economic growth will increasingly depend on the development of non-farm employment in the micro-enterprise sector and on increased productivity and access to markets for agriculture. At the same time, migration (especially temporary movement) and remittances will continue to play a key role in the province’s economic, social and cultural transformations.

In this edition, articles include:City-wide upgrading in Thailand; Finance for low-income housing in Central America; The framework for slum upgrading in Mumbai, India; Housing and citizenship in Sao Paulo, Brazil; A Church’s contribution to land redistribution in South Africa; The growing problem of forced evictions worldwide; A twin-track approach to improving the lives of slum dwellers; State and civil society in a Havana barrio, Cuba; Environmental management in Chiang Mai, Thailand; Water and sanitation in Moreno, Buenos Aires; Pro-poor governance in Bangalore’s public water sector.

Many of the most intense pollution and resource pressures originate in urban centres, and have their major impacts on the surrounding regions. Peri-urban zones are often far more environmentally unstable than either urban or rural settings. Rural–urban burdens can be especially difficult to accommodate within existing administrative systems/boundaries, particularly in countries where public authorities face severe financial difficulties. This paper provides a policy-oriented review of those environmental burdens in low-and middle-income countries that cross rural–urban boundaries but are not national or global in scale.

Are local governments able to give more power to poorer groups? And support their capacities for action and partnership? Are the urban poor able to make a creative contribution to the considerable challenges of urban management? The April 2004 issue of Environment and Urbanization describes how local governments, citizen groups and social movements are developing more participatory ways of working together. Much has been made possible by more democratic and decentralized government structures, and by bottom-up pressures and coherent alternative development approaches from citizens and civil society organizations. This issue explores new approaches and assesses their effectiveness

This paper discusses the limitations in the income-based poverty lines that are widely used to define poverty and to measure urban poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America. This includes a discussion of whether the poverty lines defined by international agencies and national governments are set at levels that are realistic in relation to the costs of living in the larger/more prosperous/more expensive cities and the prices that the urban poor have to pay for essential non-food items. It also includes a discussion of what poverty definitions based only on income fail to take account of in regard to identifying deprivation and to helping inform poverty reduction policies and practices. This paper assembles data from many empirical studies which suggest that the scale and depth of urban poverty is systematically under-estimated in most of the official statistics produced or used by governments and international agencies.