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Content: The module is concerned with understanding current environmental problems across scales - from the household to the city and the globe - and how to act on them. In term 1, participants start by surveying environmental problems in urban areas and their underlying causes and identifying who contributes most to such problems and who is most affected by them. In term 2, they further examine what has been effective in addressing these. Participants move on to critically investigate how environmental planning and management can address these problems towards just and sustainable development in an urbanizing world. Overall, the module stresses the importance of opening up the decision-making process to broad participation of all ‘stakeholders’ including organisations and federations of ‘slum’/shack dwellers.

Teaching delivery: The module consists of 18 teaching units across two terms. It adopts multiple forms of teaching and learning, including lectures, discussions, seminars, group presentations, role play exercises and a range of asynchronous activities including readings, pre-recorded lectures, videos and podcasts. Guest speakers and experts make contributions on particular topics.

Indicative Topics: The first part of the module examines urban environmental problems in an integrated way and considering how these fit within a commitment to sustainable development. Participants examine the scale and range of environmental problems, their underlying causes and impacts, focusing on issues related to water supply, sanitation, solid waste management, food, health and the social and spatial distribution of environmental hazards and risks in a changing climate. The second half of the module in term 2 introduces the nature and scope of Urban Environmental Planning and Management (EPM) looking specifically at how environmental problems can be addressed in the context of complexity and uncertainty. It focuses particularly on understanding the different actors, processes and approaches in EPM interventions and the extent to which they can shape future trajectories of just and sustainable cities.

Module Aims and/or Objectives:

The module aims to provide participants with the ability to:

• Critically diagnose the range of environmental problems in cities and how they affect human health, local ecosystems and global systems in a changing climate;
• Apply a gender and intersectional lens to explain why some groups and settlements tend to be disproportionately affected by environmental problems in cities;
• Develop desk-based research skills for supporting a detailed critical analysis
• Present evidence in an accessible and engaging way for policymakers and decisionmakers;
• Develop approaches for the resolution of these problems within the broader political economy of urban centres and regions and the societies within which they are located;
• Identify the current and potential role of community organisations, NGOs, governments and international agencies in addressing environmental problems in urban areas;
• Engage critically with the processes and procedures of environmental planning and management strategies and techniques.

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