Figure 3: The desired effect of sustainable development on supply and demand curves
As a consequence of ‘wasteful’ demand, a distinction is increasingly being
demanded between the concepts of ‘demand’, ‘needs’ and ‘basic’ or ‘essential needs’
(MMSD, 2002). In sustainable development terms the overall objective is to
minimize the difference between the latter and the former. To achieve this goal, a
number of factors on the demand and the supply side should be addressed. On the
demand side, high fertility rates in the South should be reduced, intellectual capacities
expanded, wasteful consumption world-wide should be minimized, technologies that
intensify resource consumption should be improved, and the ecological footprint of
urban settlements in terms of the range and quantities of pollution, wastes, and space
should be reduced. On the supply side, the mileage of natural resources should be
stretched as far as possible, bio-diversities protected, and assimilative capacities
increased.
An important area of research in the field of urban development lies in how
economic development can be achieved while minimizing its ecological footprint.
This shift in focus has been necessitated by the general proclivity of cities (and
nations) to reduce their potential damaging influence on the local environment by
importing resources (which cause waste streams and the depletion of resources
upstream) while exporting locally generated wastes and pollution downstream
(Haughton, 1997). In the past, unbridled capitalism often led to cost transfers as a
means to maximize profits locally, nationally and internationally. The question could
be asked how many of the shifts of messy industries from developed to developing
countries occurred during the period of industrial restructuring, only because of more
favourable labour economics, and what role easier environmental policies of ‘grow-
first-clean-later’ (Marcotullio, 2001) played in the process. Eco-sensitive urban
policies are now being experimented with to attempt to reduce externalities in current
urban practices. They range from eco-centric (‘hard’ or ‘deep green’) policies that are
unsympathetic to economic expansion, to anthropocentric (‘soft’ or ‘light green’)
policies that are aimed at balancing the need for environmental preservation and
economic development.
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