Sustainable urbanisation
Dr. David W. Smith
Department of Geography, Roxby Building, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, United Kingdom. Tel: 44 151 794 2851. Fax: 44 151 794 2866. Email: d.w.smith@liverpool.ac.uk.
Abstract of paper presented at the conference Environmental Change and Vulnerability: Lessons from Vietnam and the Indochina Region, Hanoi, Vietnam, April 4-5th 1998.
This paper is in two distinct halves. The first discusses the recent rise to prominence of the concept of sustainable urbanisation and examines the relationships between its three main components viz development, sustainability and urbanisation. It tries to define sustainable urbanisation and stresses its dynamic nature. Aspects of this debate are then transferred to an examination of environment issues in Hanoi, which is discussed in the context of other important and related aspects of sustainable urbanisation, particularly poverty, and the nature of overall patterns of urbanisation in Vietnam. The final section of the paper revisits the concept of sustainable urbanisation and assesses the responses to environmental problems which have been undertaken and suggests some future directions for management debate.