What is a desakota region and how does it fit in post-colonial critique of the global city?2/29/2024 ![]() ![]() One such term that has caught the world’s imagination is ‘sustainable development.’ After its introduction by Gro Brundtland in Our Common Future prepared by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED 1987), the term ‘sustainable development’ seems to have developed a whole literary life of its own. It is often surprising to see why certain terms, phrases and concepts in academic literature catch on while others fall into oblivion. Our biggest challenge in this new century is to take an idea that sounds abstract-sustainable development-and turn it into reality for all the world’s people (Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary General, 2001). These require an ecological prescription in political thinking, economic activities and educational systems. ![]() The paper concludes that though there are many prescriptions to curb environmental deterioration and ecological degradation, the long-term solutions will lie in changing consumption habits, lifestyle goals and value systems. ![]() They are the major contributors to the size of the ecological footprint. The upper circuit of wealthy, urban residents contribute to the wider extra-urban ecological implications due to their high consumption patterns. The intra-urban area is a human engineered landscape that is confronted by ‘brown issues.’ These brown issues are exacerbated by the lower circuit of urban dwellers, the poor slum and squatter dwellers. Cities have two very different environmental contexts. Given that cities are likely to be the norm of living in the future, it is imperative that governments focus on sustainable urban development. While the concept of sustainable development has varied interpretations, this paper asserts the need to contextualize sustainable development with an ecosystem paradigm, whether qualified as cultural, human, political or cultural. Capitalism, however, is associated with materialistic values and the growth of consumption, and hence is a major social process and structure in undermining ecosystems and biodiversity. It argues that the development of capitalism took place in both Europe and Asia and is thus culturally neutral. Based on empirical evidence in Southeast Asia, this paper critically evaluates the concept of sustainable development based on four themes: population growth and distribution, the capitalistic system, ecological systems and the nature of development. ![]()
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