Deteriorating or improving?: Transport sustainability trends in global metropolitan areas

Abstract

There is little doubt about the growing recognition worldwide that cities need to become more sustainable in their transport patterns. The world's seven billion people are increasingly locating in cities, thus placing unprecedented pressure on urban transport infrastructure and making it increasingly difficult for cities to help to ameliorate urgent global challenges such as climate change and the host of other more regional and local environmental issues facing people all over the planet. Arguably for pure economic reasons, we must also address the way cities develop, for cities are clearly the economic engines of nations.2 If human economic well-being is to improve, it must do so in a way that is not utterly damaging to the ecological systems that underpin all life. Indeed, cities must start to regenerate and repair their environments and become what are now termed Regenerative Cities,3 not just cease to do further damage.