Sustentabilidade das cidades: Aspectos conceituais

Abstract

The attempt to conciliate nature protection and its use is considered as a challenge to sustainability in the current context. There are different criteria and concepts to be applied so the environmental challenge becomes an opportunity rather than a factor generating unsustainability within cities. In order to achieve the ideals of urban sustainability, social and environmental concerns must be conjugated, based on integrated policies. Furthermore, it must be considered that due to the multiplicity of the involved agents, social issues such as health, employment and housing cannot be set aside. The question that is placed than is if it is possible to speak in terms of sustainable cities, or if sustainability surpasses the boundaries of cities, whose social and space relations already have exceeded the municipal scale.