Review: The obvious question is why we have a city review on an ecological site. The equally obvious answer is that this year we passed the 50% urban level for human location and we are therefore an urban species. It’s also obvious that the concentration of the human population has an enormous impact on local, and not so local, ecosystems. This book is part of a series produced by UN-Habitat. Sub-titled “the Millennium Development Goals and sustainability” the aim of the document is to highlight some of the key issues that we face in the 30 years since the first Habitat conference. However we see development we cannot but agree on the impact that some of the world’s poorest have on the environment not because of their activities but because of their options.

We start with an overview of the development of cities and, especially, slums. Most of this adverse growth is in those areas least able to support it – the megacities of the developing world. However, the issue is not entirely megacity-based for although they get the most attention it is agreed that most people will move into the medium-sized cities. By linking this development with the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) the reader is able to see how urban issues impact on the wider environmental scene. Part two focuses on the slums themselves finding that they lack key areas – durable housing, living space, water supply, sanitation and tenure. Each of these has the outcome of reducing options for the poorest thus ensuring a minimal concern for environmental issues (following a form of the environmental Kuznets curve?). Part three highlights the costs of living in slums. In most measures, the slum dweller performs worse than the rural dweller. This suggests they have moved in the hope of finding a better life only to find the opposite! Part four takes a more optimistic note to see where improvements have been made and how we can start to address these issues. An appendix provides references and tables of data to cover the issues raised in the body of the text.

This is an excellent text. It’s extremely well illustrated as one now expects from UN material and data are clearly laid out for maximum impact. Alongside the main text there are a series of text boxes detailing specific areas of slum dwelling (e.g. slums in Paris, sanitation for women etc ) and also some statements from key urban researchers such as Sir Peter Hall who comment on issues of city development. The book forces us to think about the issues facing the urban poor whilst at the same time suggesting ways of improving. An accessible and important text which should be found in every institution library.