• Urban environment

Urban environment

This paper addresses environmental and economic issues around increased urbanisation. Concentrating on the suburbs of Ho-Chi-Min city, it aims to provide information on demonstration projects with a particular focus on Urban Environmental Management (UEM) project results and lessons learned.

The authors argue that over the recent years, urbanisation has grown rapidly in the peripheral areas of Vietnamese cities. Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) is one of the largest cities with unplanned urbanisation; the poor involved in agricultural activities in and around the city are particularly affected. Environmental and economic issues relating to this advancing urbanisation include threats to human health, poor sanitation and hazards of contaminated water and soil, and lost revenues.

Important lessons have emerged from the principle case study discussed. These include:

• in terms of project implementation, it is best that a variety of pro-type applications are used within a community, in order to observe differences in performance
• subsidies may be necessary for up scaling to other communities, since the initial investment for a reactor is expensive for a family in rural or suburban areas. At the same time, co-funding is essential for ensuring ownership and replicability
• success in implementation does not guarantee success in sustaining and disseminating project results
• the project has shown that variety of results can emerge from a simple idea, and that UEM practices that are ‘hands-on’ are useful to demonstrate real effects on people’s lives.
  

• Full text of document
• Publisher details
• Send to a friend