Consuming Cities The Urban Environment in the Global Economy after Rio

A strong collection examining whether the Rio Declaraion has made a differene to enviromental management, and whether recent policies will help to reduce the impact of global consumption and developement.

The book examines these issues through studying three categories of countries as examples: firstly, four countries from the world's core economies-the USA, Japan, Germany and Britain; secondly 'giant' states of China and India; and finally comparisons of pairs of smaller countries of 'developing' and 'developed' countries such as Australia and Indonesia.

This book is about cities as engines of consumption of the world's environment, and the spread of policies to reduce their impact. It looks at these issues by examining the impact of the Rio Declaration and assesses the extent to which it has made a difference. Consuming Cities examines this impact using case studies from around the world including: the USA, Japan, Germany, the UK, China, India, Sweden, Poland, Australia and Indonesia The contributors all have direct experience of the urban environment and urban policies in the countries on which they write and offer an authoritative commentary which brings the urban 'consumption' dimension of sustainable development into focus.

1. Cities as Consumers of the World's Environment Brendan Gleeson and Nicholas Low ; 2. The Rio Declaration and Subsequent Global Initiatives Ingemar Elander and Rolf Lidskog ; 3. A Rough Road Out of Rio: The Right-Wing Reaction in the United States Against Global Environmentalism Timothy W Luke; 4. Contradictions at the Local Scale: Local Implementation of Agenda 21 in the USA Robert W Lake ; 5. Britain: Unsustainable Cities Andrew Blowers and Stephen Young ; 6. Sustainability and Urban Policy in Germany: Retrospect and Prospect Anke Valentin and Joachim Spangenberg ; 7. Japenese Urban Policy: Challenges of the Rio Earth Summit Fukashi Utsunomiya and Toshio Hase ; China's Urban Environmental Sustainability in a Global Context Yongyuan Yin and Mark Wang ; 9. Agenda 21 and Urban India Asesh Kumar Maitra and Arvind Krishan ;10. After Rio: Environmental Policies and Urban Planning in Sweden Rolf Lidskog and Ingemar Elander ; 11. Poland: On the Way to a Market Economy Tadeusz Markowski and Helena Rouba; 12. Consuming Cities and Environmental Policy in Australia Peter Christoff and Nicholas Low ; 13. Jakarta, Indonesia; Kampug Culture or Consumer Culture? Lea Jellinek; 14. After Rio: Urban Environmental Governance? Nicolas Low, Brendan Gleeson, Ingemar Elander and Rolf Lidskog