Urban development and global sustainability

Abstract

In the 1950s, the economist Simon Kuznets theorized the existence of a bell-shaped curve describing the correlation between the level of GDP per capita and income inequality. This generated another hypothesis concerning the existence of an inverted-U relationship between income per capita (GDP) and environmental impact. By means of a cross-country analysis, the article shows that, at least at the global scale, an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) does not exist, but rather an Environmental Urban Curve (EUC). The city exhibits an complex socioeconomic metabolism that we can define in terms of dissipative and resilience territorial structures.