Urban Environmental Management fills an important gap in today's literature by offering planners and urban decision-makers an account of the disturbing dynamics of environmental change in relation to cities. It shows how the new environmental crisis for cities and the traditional crises have a shared origin - that is, short-term localised planning, which considers a problem deferred or displaced as a problem solved. Now planners - like other decision-makers - are having to take a much longer-term view, one which takes into account the rights of future generations and places the urban system in its global and environmental context. Rodney White considers what difference this new environmental crisis makes to urban planning; the key physical functions of the city that react critically with the environment; how poor environmental quality relates to inequity in the city, and why the improvement of one requires the improvement of the other. This thought-provoking and practical book will become essential reading for urban planners and managers both as an influential source of ideas and as inspiration for action.