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MEQ 20,5

Sustainable city in the global North and South: goal or principle?

Md Masud Parves Rana
Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Rajshahi University, Bangladesh, and Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Abstract
Purpose This paper aims to provide a conceptual framework to analyse whether the global concept of sustainable city, generally produced as a goal in the cities of the global North, will be equally suitable in the cities of the global South or not. Design/methodology/approach Research has been based on a review of the literature, which has been collected from books, journals, reports and soft-materials of the internet. A simple descriptive analytical approach is followed to examine the argument. The paper argues that a sustainable city should not be a goal, but a principle of effective service provisions based on social equity and justice. Findings Despite the main premise that a sustainable city is to achieve environmental, social and economic sustainability, the concept is widely criticised due to its disputable application in the cities of the South. The paper suggests that the sustainable city discourse does not include the main problems of the cities in the global South, even though, as a goal, it is efcient and effective in the developed countries of the global North. Thus, the paper concludes that a goal-based sustainable city discourse of the global North will be misleading and inappropriate for the sustainable urban development in the cities of the global South. Originality/value Despite the widespread application of the sustainable city concept in developing countries, cities are facing numerous social, economic and environmental problems. Realising this fact, it is imperative to investigate the root-causes of the problems. In line with this thinking, the paper offers a conceptual framework to analyse urban development policies in the cities of the global South. Keywords Sustainable development, Cities, Northern hemisphere, Southern hemisphere Paper type Literature review

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Received 20 February 2009 Revised 25 March 2009 Accepted 28 April 2009

Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal Vol. 20 No. 5, 2009 pp. 506-521 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1477-7835 DOI 10.1108/14777830910981195

Introduction As a habitat of more than half of the worlds population, at present, cities are gradually gaining attention to the researchers, policy makers, government authorities and international organisations. The making and remaking of a sustainable city is a great challenge, particularly in the cities of the global South where urban population growth is unpredictable and even uncontrollable. It is estimated that with the current pace of urban population growth, 65 per cent of the total world population will be urban dwellers by the year of 2025 (Pacione, 2007) and almost 90 per cent of urban population growth will be in Asia, Africa and Latin America (UN, 2000). By the year 2015, 80 per cent of the worlds largest cities will be in this region (Dhaliwal, 2000). This unprecedented urbanisation and urban growth has stimulated academics and policymakers to search for sustainable urban development options that can pre-empt major ecological and social upheavals.

The pursuit of a sustainable city or sustainable urban development has not only been emerged as a major challenge to the governments (Pacione, 2007), but also a widely applicable sustainable development policy in the global South as well as in global North is arguable. Obviously, the major constraints are the dynamic nature of cities and the dependency on single solution based on sustainability goals for all the cities in the world. As, for example, the present sustainable city discourses are based on certain development goals, which might only be achieved by the cities of developed countries. However, the hope of fullling the goals by the developing countries is a utopia, where overwhelming rural-urban migration is uncontrollable, good governance is rare, unequal resources distribution is explicitly visible. In this unpredictable and complex situation, any goal-based development policies will certainly be misleading or partially achievable. Myllyla and Kuvaja (2005, p. 224) argue that:
[. . .] approaches to urban environment that have originated for the North carry inherently northern connotations and policy solutions that may have particular constraints when scrutinising sustainable developments societal context in the South.

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Therefore, the same goal of sustainable city will not be suitable in quest of sustainability in all cities of the world, while societal and cultural resources are different. In line with this thinking, the paper argues that a sustainable city should not be regarded as a goal, but a principle for effective service provisions based on equity and justice. The paper is based on published and unpublished literatures, which have been collected from written materials such as books, journals, reports, and softcopies of the internet. A simple descriptive analytical method has been followed to examine the research questions. After describing the genesis of the concept of sustainable development and sustainable city, the paper raises some critical questions to analyse whether the sustainable city discourse addresses the main sustainability issues of the developing cities in global South or not. Sustainable development and sustainable city Sustainable development has been a buzz-word and commonly used phrase by various persons like politicians, researchers, and environmentalists. After its introduction by Gro Brundtland in Our Common Future prepared by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WECD, 1987), the term seems to have developed a whole literary life of its own (Savage, 2006). Since 1987, there have been 50 denitions of sustainable development coined by academics, politicians, and organisations (cited in Savage, 2006, p. 37; Langhelle, 1999). Pearce et al. (1989) also quote 24 separate denitions in an appendix of their book Blueprint for a Green Economy. However, the most widely cited denition of sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (WCED, 1987, p. 43). The difculty with this denition is that needs are not precisely dened (Hall, 1998). Hall (1998), further, asserts that the denition of sustainable development is idealistic and somewhat impractical. Blowers and Pain (1999) also criticise that what may be regarded as needs in the cities of the North would be luxuries in those of the South. Therefore, the vision of sustainable city based on sustainable development would certainly be

MEQ 20,5

debatable as the denition of sustainable development is quite unacceptable. Nonetheless, the concept has been a great catalyst to produce the notions, sustainable city, eco-city, or sustainable urban development. This section discusses genesis of the concept of sustainable development and how it relates to sustainable city discourse. Sustainable development and sustainability The common discourse of the global environmental agenda has been dominated by two international documents, namely, Brundtlands Report (WECD, 1997), and Agenda 21 (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, 1992). The Brundtland Report provides an overall idealistic view of sustainability and development, which includes, for instance, conservation of natural recourses, resource management, and project planning for environmental consideration (Masreque and Khan, 2000). Noticeably, Agenda 21 of the summit particularly gave more attention to the challenges of sustainable urban development. Besides these, in 1994, the Global Forum on Cities and Sustainable Development considered 50 cities reports on progress on achieving sustainable development (Pacione, 2007). According to United Nations Centre for Human Settlement (1996), City Summit (Habitat II) monitored the progress of cities across the globe on achieving sustainability. In addition, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is also another target-based initiative of the United Nations. To follow this movement of development, currently, numbers of government organisations, non-government organisations, international and national agencies are taking up sustainable urban development programmes as a goal based on the principles of sustainable development, although Pacione (2007) argues the level of attention directed to the principles of sustainable development is less widespread in contrast to implementation of policies to achieve sustainable urban development. Payne (2005) also critically analysed MDGs, from which, it is undoubtedly clear that the gap between public declarations of global environmental agenda and achievement of the goals is large. The following sections further illustrate the notions of sustainable development and sustainability in light of the Brundtland Report, Agenda 21 and MDGs. Lee and Huang (2007) identify sustainable development as the most challenging and controversial issue with respect to its interpretation and application in global North as well as in global South. In fact, it is interchangeably used as ecologically sustainable or environmentally sound development. Some take it as sustained growth, sustained change or simply successful development (Ahmed, 1993). Brundtlands Report highlights the environmental issues and contemporary development strategies which cause resource depletion without caring sustainability. The report urges to promote investment for economic growth considering negative impact on the environment. But the report did not analyse the inequalities in terms of availability of resources within and between the countries (see Reid, 1995; Verbung and Weigel, 1997; Langhelle, 1999). Atkinson (2004) asserts that no signicant recommendations were made concerning the redistribution of the resources through augmented aid packages between the countries of the North and South. Moreover, from the radicalist point of view, the sustainable development concept is also criticised for its quest to achieve maximum economic growth. Lee and Huang

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(2007) dene sustainability as the ultimate goal of sustainable development; it describes the state that is to be reached by sustainable development. That state would be achieved when all people can satisfy their basic needs and enjoy good quality of life, and the opportunities are also guaranteed for future generations. Most of the governments of developed countries believe that sustainable development and economic growth can be achievable simultaneously. It is true that economic growth cannot avoid environmental impacts; but the logic is, it can be sustainable by generating technical capacity or measures through economic growth (Langhelle, 1999). This implies necessity of ecological modernisation. But, the radicalists stance is against ecological modernisation, as they believe that economic growth is the fundamental cause of unsustianability (Blowers and Pain, 1999; Hall, 1998). In addition, achieving the same level of economic growth through modern environmentally friendly technology is not possible by all of the countries in global South. Therefore, it is obvious that with this type of ideological divisions and political debate the scholarship of sustainable development will continue to shape our future (Hall, 1998). The Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 was an important milestone (Atkinson, 2004) in fullling the ideological targets of sustainable development at all levels of spatial organisations (Pacione, 2007). In that summit, three international agreements were proposed and Agenda 21 was placed. Atkinson (2004) argues that Agenda 21 promoted similar solutions of free-market economics and economic growth as the Brundtland Report did to address the issues of economic disparities and poverty. They actually focused on economic growth and technological solutions of environmental impacts as an important part of strategic framework for achieving sustainability (Langhelle, 1999) rather than focusing on resource redistribution and socio-political issues of development. Apparently, it seems that there was involvement of major corporate interest in nancing Agenda 21 (Chatterjee and Finger, 1994), which led to inefcient structural suggestions to achieve sustainable development (Atkinson, 2004). Agenda 21 is a blueprint to formulating national, regional and local agendas. Most of the countries responded positively to the movement but little progress is made except in developed countries in the North (Atkinson, 2004). In response to the series of conferences following UNCED, the International Non-governmental Organization (NGO) and the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) were founded and supported by International Union of Local Authorities (IULA) and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). Although a little response of Agenda 21 was recognised in the beginning in the cities of South, a remarkable progress was initiated by some Dutch and German-sponsored projects. Virtually, the transfer of local experiences from North to South has been an important force to promoting Local Agenda 21(Atkinson, 2004). The UN Habitat II (City Summit) in Istanbul (1996) brought the issues of urban environment to the core of the global environmental agenda as Habitat Agenda. The agenda accentuates decentralisation through transfer of power and resources to local government, NGOs as well as to residents or community organisations (Leitmann, 1999; Myllyla and Kuvaja, 2005). Moreover, urban environmental problems were considered as part of the plan of implementation in the latest UN conference (World Summit on Sustainable Development) held in Johannesburg in 2002. The focus was given to build up capacities all social levels to implement Agenda 21 and Habitat Agenda in Africa and

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among slum dwellers around the world (Myllyla and Kuvaja, 2005). Following the 2002 Earth Summit, numerous international organisations and agencies like, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Community, and World Bank, have taken sustainable city programmes to embrace sustainable urban development as a goal (Pacione, 2007). There is another goal or target-based global initiative of sustainable development entitled MDGs, declared and adopted in the year of 2000 by United Nations. These set up global targets for different sectors, to be achieved by specied deadlines. In case of urban development, focusing on urban poor and development of quality of life, there are two key targets. The most signicant is Goal 7, in which target 10 seeks to halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015; and target 11 seeks to achieve a signicant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020 (Payne, 2005). But, surprisingly, by the same way of Brundtlands Report and Agenda 21, MDGs do not take into account the issues of resource redistribution, and even it does not consider the total amount of urban poor that will be at the upper limit of the target year. Therefore, the notion of sustainable development and sustainability are the products of different global developmental initiatives, albeit their applicability in development programmes is still debatable. For instance, Saxena (1999) argues, our approach should be holistic on every resource sector and at all levels of local, regional and global scale. In contrast to this idea, the question arises, whether it is possible to dene sustainability with a set of common indicators at all geographical scales or not. Obviously, we are living in the world with huge diversities and great inequalities; socially, economically, environmentally, culturally and politically. These diversities and inequalities become constraint to opt for global sustainable development. So, global solutions are not the signicant goal what we are looking for. A similar debate also appears when we analyse the notion of sustainable city and sustainable urban development. Sustainable city and sustainable urban development There is no satisfactory denition of city (Haughton and Hunter, 1994). However, it has been often dened by population size and nature of activities. Cappon (1990, p. 9) dened city as:
[. . .] a more or less regular and recognisable agglomeration of buildings and thoroughfares where people live and work, and also engage in many of their social and cultural activities, usually requiring at least 10,000 residents (cited in Haughton and Hunter, 1994; p. 14).

In another view, cities are currently home of the majority of the worlds population, centre place of modernisation and communication, and engine of a countrys economic development (Girard, 2003). Moreover, cities are the agglomeration of the riches, economic activities and modern technological advancement and opportunities (Kleniewski, 2006). Besides these, cities are now very vulnerable places to live and enjoy quality of life because of environmental problems, rapid growth of urban poor and terrorism. For this reason, sustainable city or urban sustainability has been a common goal of all countries in the world. However, it is almost unachievable in all

dimensions of human life, particularly in perspective of the cities of developing countries. A sustainable city must be economically viable, socially peaceful and environmentally friendly. More especially, a sustainable city is a place where people live with sufcient income-earning, security and quality of life. Sustainable city depends on societys relationship with its environment, which is basically a product of powerful and inuential groups in that society (Buckingham and Turner, 2008). Girardet (1999) denes sustainable city as:
[. . .] organized so as to enable all its citizens to meet their own needs and to enhance their well-being without damaging the natural world or endangering the living conditions of other people, now or in the future.

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Haughton and Hunter (1994, p. 27) dene sustainable city as:

[. . .] one in which its people and businesses continuously endeavor to impose their natural, built and cultural environments at neighborhood and regional levels, whilst working in ways which always support the goal of global sustainable development.

In addition, the idea of sustainable urban development has been seminal and highly signicant among intellectuals and policy makers in the 1990s (Pugh, 2000). Pacione (2007) argues that:
[. . .] urban sustainability is fundamentally a political process rather than a technological or design problem in that one of the greatest obstacles to achieving enhanced urban sustainability is the absence of political support for policies aimed at implementing sustainable practices in local contexts.

For this reason, looking at the locally embedded environmental problems is important for sustainable urban development. To achieve sustainable urban development or urban sustainability, urban environmental problems are key issues in urban planning. McGranahan and Satterthwaite (2000) divide urban environmental problems into two agendas. First, there are the items on the conventional sanitary or environmental health agenda i.e. brown agenda, which have long been familiar to urban dwellers (Savage, 2006). This includes unsanitary living conditions, hazardous pollutants in the urban air and waterways and accumulations of solid waste (McGranahan and Satterthwaite, 2000). These problems have immediate impact on urban dwellers, living in precarious settlements directly (Hardoy et al. 1992) and to the afuence society indirectly. Second, there are environmental problems which have impact in long-term basis, namely, ecosystem disruption by consumption and waste generation, resource degradation and global climate change i.e. green agenda (McGranahan and Satterthwaite, 2000). The distinction can be further exhibited in political attempts to divide radial fundamentalism from conservatism. On the one hand, a radical approach is to adopt a strong position and to advocate the defence of nature and environmental capital. On the other hand, a conservative position would accept incremental, but signicant adjustment to ongoing development (Pugh, 2000). Brown agenda was coined to accentuate the problems of cities in developing countries, where a larger portion of urban dwellers are poor. This can be further classied into two; those relate to environmental health due to inadequacy in access to

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housing and services, and those relating to industrialisation such emissions from factories and transportation (Myllyla and Kuvaja, 2005; Leitmann, 1999). However, on the one hand, brown agenda is mostly prevalent in large southern megacities, which usually immediately affect urban poor community. On the other hand, the green agenda focuses on reducing impact of production, consumption and waste generation and the negative human impact on environment, which usually relevant to the developed cities in the North but has a delay or long-term effect (Myllyla and Kuvaja, 2005). The issues of prioritising brown issues of the cities in global South become problematic when the policy makers and planners set their vision of sustainable city, or eco-city or ecological modernisation as dened by the global North. To deal with this dichotomy, the notion of sustainable development and sustainability raises questions that are largely important to plan a sustainable city of developing countries in global South. Sustainable city discourse: some critical questions The previous sections discuss on the notion of sustainable development and policies of urban sustainability, which do not properly address the main urban problems of the developing countries in the South. As a result, obviously, the global initiatives in the South emphasise minor issues more than the major issues, for which almost half of urban dwellers (urban poor) live in vulnerable environment. Aguilar and de Fuentes (2007) notice:
[. . .] today, the city is characterized by a complex and diverse urban reality, with serious social and environmental problems that include extensive low-income settlements, large sections of the population with inadequate access to housing and basic urban infrastructure (especially water and sewerage) . . . The city is now characterized by a range of problems, including large scale in-migration, land invasion, a high proportion of the workforce relying on the informal economy for their livelihoods, a high cost of living, urban segregation and fragmentation, marked by socio-economic disparities (also environmental), lack of environmental awareness among developers and constructions companies, the privatization of urban services and week public administrations.

Despite few achievements in sustainable city programmes, the ever-rising urban unsustainability in the global South stimulates to argue with present achievements in developing countries. This contention raises few questions against sustainable city discourse which are discussed below. Does sustainable city discourse include poorer sector of the society? The patterns of contemporary urbanisation in the South differ substantially from those of Euro-American industrial urbanisation in the North (Dhaliwal, 2000). The parasitic (Constantino-David, 2004) form of development is shaping in the South following the development paradigm of the North, which actually excludes the poor. It can also be argued that participation in the global market to have economic development by the cities of South was not considering a countrys carrying and caring capacity which enhances inequality in service provisions in the cities. Therefore, it becomes obvious that the development strategies with the framework of

developed cities in the North do not encourage development considering the poor section of the urban society. Sustainable city discourse is not only criticised for emphasising economic growth of the cities but also it was hoped that the benets of the growth would tickle-down to the poorer section of urban society. Rather, it has made two types of negative impacts. First, the economic growth to one (rich) section of the society has widened disparities and inequalities with other (poor and middle class) sections of the society in terms of quality of life. Second, it has degraded the environmental quality of the cities except the areas where the afuences live. This type of trend of economic growth based on sustainable city discourse push the poor to live in precarious settlements, which makes them victim to and blamed for environmental pollution and degradation. A study by Constantino-David (2004) shows that following Northern development paradigm, the high rate of urbanisation (5.1 per cent annually) in Metro Manila, Philippines, with environmental problems and lack of services have deteriorated quality of life. He argues that many of the political leaders and technocrats unfortunately perceive the engagement of the poor as messy. Moreover, civil society organisations tend to romanticise the poor, believing they have all the answers (Constantino-David, 2004). Joseph (2004, p. 147) argues that sustainability is an alien concept for the urban poor in the Southern cities. He further asserts that the urban poor are no longer citizens demanding economic and social rights; they are beneciaries of the generosity of foreign governments and agencies (Joseph, 2004, p. 151). Osumanu (2007) points out that there are researches (see Satterthwaite, 1992, McGranahan et al., 2001) related to urban environments of low income cities (poor-quality housing, inadequate provision for water supply, sanitation and drainage), but less attention has been given to the urban poors environmental views and needs. In examining socio-economic outcomes of the development of cities in Southeast Asia, Savage (2006) argues that environmental dialectic is embedded in the socio-economic dualisms of the cities. This dualism divides urban society into two: upper circuit (very afuent, visible, well-educated, mobile, high-income people) and lower circuit (workers, hawkers, maids, artisans, prostitutes, drivers, shop assistant). Therefore, the sustainable city discourse also exhibits this dualism and foster unequal spatial development of the city space, as exclusive rich areas and precarious poor areas. These analyses obviously suggest that the present sustainable city policies exclude the priority of the poor, which ultimately indirectly affects the whole urban ecosystem. Does sustainable city discourse encourage urban fragmentation? The cities in the South are experiencing sustainable development in limited exclusive areas. Myllyla and Kuvaja (2005) term this area as ecological islets. For them, the ecological islets emerge as a counter of expanding precarious settlements in the city. Moreover, they add, the ecological islets practices exclusive sustainable development, but contributes very little to the city-wide eco-social morality among the city people. In fact, the life of ecological islets very much similar to the standard of life in North. The members of ecological islets can nd their afuence reference groups from the North, they may create a new kind of solidarity towards those distant others rather than building solidarity with those living in the same city (Myllyla and Kuvaja, 2005). Savage (2006) terms the resident of upper circuit of the urban society as

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circumscribed oasis albeit within a deteriorating urban system and environment for their conspicuous consumption. Corubolo (1998) provides a theoretical framework of urban fragmentation examining neoliberal market-based economic policies and incapability of government. The neoliberal economic development gradually weakens the power and authority of the government in terms of nancial strength and service providing. As a result, on the one hand, the powerful afuent gets access to limited resources and facilitates of the government, but the powerless poor cannot achieve it and become gradually marginalised on the other. Corubolo (1998, p. 8) criticises this uneven development as:
[. . .] on one side concentrations of wealth in voluntary self-secluded residential areas, and on the other concentrations of misery, characterized by absence or poor maintenance of basic public utilities and infrastructure, poor living conditions and largely unplanned land use patterns.

Therefore, it may be proved that sustainable city discourse encourages creating segregation or fragmentation in the city, which widen inequality in the society rather than minimise the gap between the rich and the poor. Does sustainable city discourse consider environmental justice? Environmental justice has emerged as a policy issue for the last three decades. With the growing concern of socio-economic inequality, environmental justice issues are also obvious because of their interconnectedness with socio-economic disparities. It is explicitly observable that socio-economically marginalised people are mostly vulnerable to environmental problems. This is debatable to probe that who is the contributors to and victims of environmental degradation in the cities. The poor are generally blamed for environmental degradation. On the contrary, the riches of the urban society are accused of conspicuous consumption. Savage (2006, p. 50) notes it is tragic that through an unequal capitalistic system, the rich are able to exploit the earths resources and capital through economic means and vested power. He further goes on to say that urban riches are largely culprit for depletion of environmental capital of the earth. However, the issue of environmental justice is more political that creates social, economic and environmental inequalities in the cities. Pacione (2007, p. 250) states that environmental justice exists when environmental pollution and environmental benets are distributed equally among the societies. But, present neoliberal market economy creates unequal competitive participation in development process in which all people cannot equally participate. The condition is severe in developing countries, where poor and rich communities of urban society live in extreme opposite socio-economically, environmentally and politically. It appears that present global capitalistic economic system constructs the society in favour of capitalists ignoring ability to access to the market by all, particularly the poor. Unfortunately, sustainable development discourse allows this system to ensure economic growth. However, this market system gradually forces the poor to be oppressed and deprived of minimum quality of life. The result of oppression and deprivation compel them to live in unhygienic environments, which undoubtedly

shows environmental injustice. Therefore, another shortfall of sustainable city discourse is that it cannot ensure equal environmental opportunities for all. Does sustainable city discourse prioritise the brown agenda of the South? It is obvious that both the Brundtlands Report and Earth Summit declaration emphasise global environmental challenges as green agenda such as global warming, loss of biodiversity, and ozone layer depletion considering the necessity of urban sustainability of the North. On the contrary, most of the Southern cities are facing environmental problems of brown agendas (McGranahan and Satterthwaite, 2000; Myllyla and Kuvaja, 2005). In 2001, 924 million people, or about 31 per cent of the worlds urban population, were living in informal settlements or slums; 90 per cent of which were located in the developing countries. By 2030, the number of slum dwellers is projected to reach two billion (UNFPA, 2007a,b). According to the report of IRIN (2008), in Dhaka of Bangladesh, 3.4 million of the citys 13 million residents live in 5,000 slums and squatter settlements. Moreover, 60 per cent populations of Nairobi are packed into more than 130 informal settlements occupying only 5 per cent of the citys total land area, while the squatter settlements of Mumbai are growing 11 times faster than the city itself, with 300 people arriving from the countryside each day. The report also suggests that as urban populations increase, the number of people without access to clean water is also rising, likely to be double from 108 million in 1990 to 215 million by 2010. Moreover, in dense city environments and in even more dense slum environments communicable diseases can quickly become epidemics, making the consequence of unsafe water and poor sanitation much more severe than in rural areas. The condition of brown issues in developing countries depicts that the contemporary policies for sustainable city do not address the issues with privilege. Critics, like Shiva (1993), have pointed out that the priorities of the global environmental agenda have created a situation in which problems that have been caused and identied by the North are expected to be solved through northern innovations implemented by South (cited in Myllyla and Kuvaja, 2005, p. 225). But it is imperative that sustainable city discourse should include local denitions of environmental problems instead of considering broad and geographically biased environmental aspects. Myllyla and Kuvaja (2005, p. 225) state, this would create more inclusive global discourses taking into account different regional and cultural meanings given to environmental transformations and their implications. From this explanation, it is noticeable that sustainable city discourse does not prioritise brown agenda of the South as much as it does for green agenda. While brown issues are the main environmental problems in cities of developing countries, it is urgent to consider not only as local problems, but also the problems what the larger portion of the populations face. Does sustainable city discourse consider urban population growth properly? The world is increasingly becoming urban. Not even wars, natural disasters and public policies decrease the pace of urbanisation rather increase it. Kasarda and Rondinelli (1990) state that a similar kind of urban revolution in industrial countries in late nineteenth century is now taking place in the developing countries. The developing world is very quickly becoming urban from predominant rural. In 1950, only 18 per

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cent of people were living in cities in developing countries. In 2000 the proportion was 40 per cent, and by 2030 the developing world will be 56 per cent urban (UNFPA, 2004; Osumanu, 2007). Cities are already home of more than half of the worlds population and over the next 30 years, most of the two billion-plus person increase in global population is expected to occur in urban areas in the developing world (Cohen, 2006). There were 83 cities or city systems with populations of more than 1 million in 1950, 34 of them in developing countries. In 2000, there were 280 such cities and this number is expected to double by 2015 (Rodrigue et al., 2007) and just under 500 in 2025 (Dogan and Kasarda, 1988; Kasarda and Rondinelli, 1990). Noticeably, all the new millionaire cities, and 12 of the worlds 15 largest cities are in the developing countries. If cities of 8 million are considered, 28 were existed in 2000 in total, in which 22 of them were in developing countries. Moreover, by 2025, according to the Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia alone will have at least ten hypercities, those with 20 million people or more, including Jakarta, Indonesia (24.9 million people), Dhaka, Bangladesh (25 million), Karachi, Pakistan (26.5 million), Shanghai (27 million) and Bombay (with a staggering 33 million) (Davis, 2004). Chinese experts forecast that Chinese cities will contain 800 million people by 2020 (Peoples Daily Online, 2004). Therefore, a huge population growth will be observed in developing countries within few decades. Now, the question is, whether we are considering this trend of urban population growth in planning of sustainable city or not? The previous research suggests that a target or goal-based development policies can serve only a small portion of the total population (Payne, 2005). To examine the proposition of global environmental discourse and MDGs, Payne (2005) argues that if the MDG target is achieved, it may meet only 11 per cent of existing needs and only 7 per cent of future estimated needs by 2020. For instance, UN-Habitat estimates that there are currently 924 million slum dwellers in the world, and this number could grow to 1.5 billion by 2020 and more than 2 billion by 2030 (UN, 2003). In addition, however, several researchers (see McCarney et al., 1995; Atkinson, 1994) have also pointed out that global environmental and development agendas have not included the issues of urban populations properly (cited in Myllyla and Kuvaja, 2005). Despite there being an increasing recognition of urbanisation and urban environmental problems, there is not much coherence among the actors (IIED, 2001) and even the concept of urban environmental problems in Southern context is still unspecied (Myllyla and Kuvaja, 2005). Therefore, the dened target may be achievable, but will not provide an appropriate solution to all (Payne, 2005). The analysis indicates that urban population in developing countries is uncontrollably and unpredictably increasing, which makes complexity in implementation policies in long-term basis. Therefore, the target of sustainable city in the cities of developing countries will provide sustainability to a few, but not to all in future. Do the eco-city and ecological modernisation concepts include affordability of the poor countries? The development process of cities in developing countries is based on the approaches of eco-city or ecological city. Both of the concepts take into account environmental impacts of development and economic growth. Particularly, eco-city approaches

have come out realising the environmental degradation from the modernisation, which is very much familiar in cities of North. The concept could be successfully implemented where there is a strong partnership and cooperation between the communities and government as well. So, the success of eco-city approaches depends on some pre-requisites of cities, in which the cities of South are lacking in. Realising this fact, Myllyla and Kuvaja (2005) argue that an eco-city, which derives from northern realities and experiences does not respond to the fundamental challenges rising from a southern social context, and therefore, it may be inherently incapable of proving a solid theoretical toolbox when analysing various strategies for urban environmental challenges in the South. Similarly, the concept of ecological city could be proven as unsustainable in perspective of developing countries, especially in the megacities where about half of the city people live under poverty line. Actually, the concept is established based on ecological modernisation. Ecological modernisation also includes the issue of environmental impacts of economic growth but proposes that the environmental problems can be solved by technological development. Carter (2007) states it as an alternative approach to greening capitalism. Obviously, the concept encourages more development programmes instead of making any limit of ecological destruction and not considering materialistic human behaviour. Carter (2007) also states that the political message of ecological modernization is that capitalism can be made more environmentally friendly by the reform of existing economic, social and political institutions. Certainly, the concept mostly focuses on environmental problems of capitalistic-industrialised countries, which have affordability to have technological solutions. As Carter (2007) says ecological modernisation is strangely silent on North-South issues. From this point of view, a question arises that whether the cities in developing countries are compatible or affordable to follow the theory of ecological modernisation or not. Myllyla and Kuvaja (2005) criticise the whole notion of ecological city has turned into a commercial eco-city for its emphasis on technological solutions. The ecological city concept also makes the city-society divided in terms of capacity to use technological solutions. Therefore, in the economic perspective of developing cities, a small segment of population will be affordable to live in ecologically sustainable areas (Myllyla and Kuvaja, 2005). Thus it is quite explicit that the concept of eco city and ecological city encourage economic growth with modern technical solutions of environmental impacts. Partly the concepts provide ways of urban sustainability, but not as a unique or universal method that can be applicable in the cities of South. Obviously the reason is unequal capacity to have access to modern technical solution of environmental problems. This understanding provokes us to look for a signicant way of achieving sustainable city based on locally embedded or city-specic and even country-specic strategies of sustainability, instead of global sustainable city discourse. Conclusion In the present era of urbanisation, sustainable city is a common expectation to both of the developing and developed countries. But, in this unequal world, a common policy one size t for all of sustainable city and its ubiquitous applicability as a goal is arguable. From this point of view, the article focuses on the process of making

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sustainable city in the global South, which follows sustainable city discourse of the global North. Indeed, the article provides a conceptual framework to explore this contestation in perspective of cities of global south. Sustainable city discourse is basically originated through the concept of Sustainable Development and Agenda 21. Various countries (members of the UN), organisations and communities have adopted it as a common development goal. But, the development policies, likely to be fullled by achieving certain goals, are debatable. Analysing MDGs and consideration of urban population growth, Payne (2005) argues that a target-driven policy agenda detracts attention from the real issues that need to be addressed. Constantino-David (2004) also admits that the problem with the concept of sustainable development is that it implies movement toward a goal. A run after achieving certain goals become misleading or appear to be achievable for minority of the urban society in perspective of cities of the South where socio-economic disparities are explicitly visible. Myllyla and Kuvaja (2007, p. 235) argue that:
[. . .] it is reasonable to recognise that some of the present development process of Southern megacities may be environmentally friendly and even sustainable, but they do not automatically contribute to the transformation towards a more just and equal society.

Therefore, the question arises, whether sustainable city concept will be effective as a goal or as a principle? The previous research suggests that as a goal it could be possible to achieve by the countries of North. Nonetheless, surprisingly, the countries in the South blindly follow their policies and discourse of sustainable city. Therefore, it is imperative to analyse further the sustainable city discourse with empirical evidences. The conceptual background of this paper might be helpful to explore whether sustainable city discourse should be a goal or principle of sustainable urban development in the cities of global South.
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