Asian urban sustainability in the era of globalization

The process of achieving urban sustainable development is uncharted. We only know that plans should address the economic, environmental and social health of the city and this task can only be accomplished by approaching each of these issues at different scales. For rapidly developing world cities, "sustainability" is becoming an increasingly elusive objective, in part, because of impacts by forces beyond their borders. Using the Asia-Pacific region as a case study, a framework relates regional transnational flows to the state of the urban environment and the social conditions of linked rapidly developing cities. The "functional city system" within the Asia-Pacific increasingly is both the engine of urban growth and the force behind differentiating urban environmental and social issues. At the same time, while globalization forces have been particularly strong within cities in the Asia-Pacific, local factors also play a crucial role in urban development. Globalization driven growth has not translated into a single path of development, rather localities have demonstrated contextually specific paths. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.