Environment and Development -- Eighth Class: The Urban Environment

Last week in my Environment and Development course (ERST-IDST-POST-SAFS 3602H) I presented a wide-ranging view of urban environments: the growth of cities, the health consequences of pollution and other aspects of these environments, and the implications of political and social inequalities for urban environmental agendas.  One point that I stressed was that urban environmental challenges (such as sanitation, water supply, or housing) should be framed not just in terms of capacity (and the lack of it in relation to rapidly growing cities in Latin America, Africa, and Asia), but in terms of legal, political and social inequalities, that make even the problems themselves (let alone potential solutions) contested.

A few recent events helped set the scene, including the currently terrible state of the air in Delhi, and the study published last month by the Lancet Commission describing the global impacts of pollution on health (particularly in cities in India, China, and elsewhere).  This report identified pollution as the world's leading cause of death.

I framed much of the class in terms of an analysis of five responses to urban environmental issues, chosen because they provide opportunities to explores diverse political imperatives: the collision between planning and communities, as in the Dharavi neighbourhood in Mumbai; Chinese eco-cities (in which a particular kind of politics becomes hardwired into planning); privatization of urban services (using the celebrated case of water privatization in Cochabamba, Bolivia); public services in Curitaba, Brazil; and local initiatives of community organization-building.

I had also assigned a few readings to support the case studies discussed in class:

• Diana Lee-Smith, "Cities feeding people: an update on urban agriculture in equatorial Africa," Environment and Urbanization, 2010, 22: 483-499.
•  D. Asher Ghertner, "Green evictions: environmental discourses of a "slum-free" Delhi," in: Richard Peet, Paul Robbins and Michael Watts (eds.) Global political ecology, (Routledge, 2011), pp. 145-165.
• Nabeel Hamdi, "Street Work and Dev-Talk: Who Controls the Truth?" in: Small Change: About the art of practice and the limits of planning in cities.  (Earthscan, 2004), pp. 3-17.
• Dina Abbott, "Looking beyond the visible: contesting environmental agendas for Mumbai's slums," in: G. Wilson, P. Furniss, R. Kimbowa, eds., Environment, Development, and Sustainability, (Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 86-96.

We watched a few videos that were also helpful in exploring these issues, on the Dharivi neighbourhood, the Tianjin Eco-city, water privatization in Bolivia, and Curitiba.  (I even showed a short video of landing at Mumbai airport that I made myself.)

And here are the slides from my lecture: