Sustainable Urbanization: A Conceptual Discourse

Abstract

Cities are the sites where most of the resource destruction and pollution take place. Most of the debates and discourses about sustainability get shaped in the cities; therefore, they also play a critical role in promoting sustainable development. With more than 50 percent of the global population expected to be in urban areas by 2020, the form and structure of cities pose the most urgent and pressing problems. Furthermore, there no longer is an “outside” or “limit” of the city, as socioecological footprint of the cities has become global. Cities of today need to meet environmental goals for the people who inhabit it with a minimum transfer of environmental cost outside their limits. Sustainable development is one possible way through which the issue of continuous depletion can be addressed. In this context, the present paper analyses the possibility of achieving sustainability in contemporary cities.