In many areas of the world, environmental degradation in and around human settlements is undermining prospects for both socioeconomic justice and ecological sustainability. To explore the issues involved in this worldwide problem, Keith Pezzoli focuses on a dramatic instance of conflict that grew out of the unauthorized penetration of human settlements into the Ajusco greenbelt zone, a vital part of Mexico City's ecological reserve. The heart of the book is the story of what happened when residents of the Ajusco settlements fought relocation by proposing that the areas be transformed into productive ecology settlements. Pezzoli draws upon urban and regional planning theory and practice to examine biophysical as well as ethical and social sides of the story, and he uses the Mexican experience to identify planning strategies to link economy, ecology, and community in sustainable development. -- Publisher description.

The answers to the questions of why and how people live where they live as well as how they maintain and integrate with one another are fundamental human settlement issues rooted in history and culture. Human settlements are historically linked to resource availability, fortification, and the mythos of civilizations. Cities play a central role in redefining the interface between human beings and nature. They have revolutionized the human experience by taming natural surroundings and building environments that are human-centric—often narrowing human life outside the experience of wilderness or the untamed. This book is divided into three parts, it examines urban development trends, explores perspectives in energy efficiency and agriculture security, and considers policy development and future scenarios in human-nature relations. It is a compendium of multidisciplinary work that challenges the directions of modernity and offers reference to alternatives. Authors come from a diverse background and international context to address common overarching theories facing current geography-specific problems. An interconnected overtone of the book attempts to link accelerated urbanization and settlement location to how societies are maintained and integrated. Human settlements are shaped by human ecology and the relationship between humans and their interaction with their environment. Two sectors central to human survival are specifically explored: energy and agriculture. Cutting-edge, smart development looks at the latest findings that reflect the on-going debate facing these sectors. A human settlement metric is envisioned in terms of the past, present, and future. This book is a unique attempt to combine a rethinking about human settlements for scientists, policy-makers, public officials, and people committed to improving urban life, society-wide. Possible agents to resolving human settlement problems include international cooperation and various mechanisms that interlace the international community. Methodological and applied aspects of sustainable management focus on topics such as adaptive knowledge sharing, renewable energy, climate change, agricultural planning, and policy development. An emphasis on scientific and technological advancement, from a bottom-up mapping of society, elucidates a better understanding of the role of knowledgeable societies in which need is considered alongside how such need can be sustained—advancing towards a more promising future.

This book--an outcome of the authors' ongoing research on the complex relationships between humans and water in an urban context--presents an integrated model for assessing and forecasting the sustainability of human settlements, particularly urban communities. After introducing the conceptual and contextual dimensions of sustainability through an extensive review of the literature on the subject, the authors go on to explain their model. They then elaborate on the methodology for its formulation, development and implementation. This model has also been used to analyse changes in the availability of water and open spaces, and variations in lifestyles, community attitudes and living conditions including sanitation practices, and waste generation and its disposal.

This book is about the growth and future development of cities. Its collection of nine essays brings together a variegation of views and visions of how we might build sustaining cities into the 21st century, with one staying concern: a better tomorrow. The essays do not profess to provide answers but rather, alternative starting points for further explorations and reflections on the meaning of sustainable development for our cities.

The UN's urban sustainability goal (#11) is fundamental to the global sustainable development agenda. David Simon explains the anatomy and dynamics of SDG 11, and critically assess how it is being used and understood in different local, regional and national contexts.

Human Settlement Development is a component of Encyclopedia of Institutional and Infrastructural Resources in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. The Theme on Human Settlement Development deals, in nine parts and four volumes , with a myriad of issues of great relevance to our world such as: Urban Sustainability and the Regional City System in the Asia Pacific; Peri-Urbanization: Zones of Rural - Urban Transition; Urban Sustainability: Theoretical Perspectives on Integrating Economic Development and the Environment; Rural Sustainability; Using Foreign Direct Investment to Improve Urban Environmental Infrastructure and Services- The Case of Hanoi, Vietnam; The Long Road Towards Sustainable Cities: The Dutch case; Urban Dimensions of Sustainable Development; Rural Development: Participation and Diversity for Sustainability; The Cities, the State and the Markets: In Search of Sustainability These four volumes are aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College students Educators, Professional practitioners, Research personnel and Policy analysts, managers, and decision makers and NGOs.