Urban environmental imprints after globalization

While cities continue to cast a large environmental imprint on their regionally proximate environments, they are also exerting a stronger influence on the natural systems of more remote locations because of their growing interconnectedness and interdependence with other cities??in a word, globalization. This paper reviews some of the characteristic features of globalization and its environmental impacts. It also discusses possible responses to these developments and focuses in particular on the critical role that urban infrastructure systems can play. The paper concludes with a discussion of how one might conduct analyses supporting the management of changes in urban infrastructure systems to lighten urban environmental imprints.