Institutional structures and processes for environmental planning and management of the peri-urban interface.
Abstract
Recently, a new interest in urban and rural links has arisen. At the peri-urban interface where these links meet, environmental conditions are often at their most unacceptable. As compared to MDCs, the interface in LDCs is more often the location of the poor. The poor tend to suffer disproportionately the effects of adverse environmental conditions, and this is one of the reasons. In LDCs, activities at the location of this interface are generally overwhelmed by the changes precipitated by advancing urban growth.
Strategies are needed which deal not only with urban impacts but also with the transitional nature of activities in the zone, once urban impacts are felt. And there are strategies for rural activities to exploit their proximity to towns and cities. Yet these strategies must be matched to the limited capacities of the institutions available for formulating and implementing them if they are to be effective. Alternatively, institutions can be given new capacities or new relationships.