THIS COLLECTION OF papers, drawn from a 1996 conference, is a response to the paucity of research and knowledge on environmental realities in urban areas in the South. The goal of the book is to acknowledge advances in environmental management that have been achieved in African and Latin American cities, and to provide the kind of information that would allow them to be replicated elsewhere. The editor points out that although this is a collection by different authors, it should be viewed as a dialogue – between experts in different fields, between the South and the North and, particularly, between Latin America and Africa, two regions that can only benefit from direct contact.

Several of the chapters address broad issues. Others focus on case studies and particular innovative strategies, some of them discussed in comparison with one another. Examples from Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Egypt, Ghana, South Africa and Tunisia are all considered in some detail. Even in these chapters, however, authors tend to go beyond the specifics of particular cases to discuss the broader implications for urban environmental management. Some of the concerns addressed are problems of replicability; the importance of partnerships and of integrated strategies; the implications of a research agenda determined primarily by Northern perceptions; the importance of enforcement and of adequate legal–institutional frameworks; and the role of decentralization and popular participation. The book closes with a call for a fundamental shift in contemporary urban culture and in our relationship with the urban environment.