Susan Parnell

Melbourne, Australia is a city rich in biodiversity. It contains a high proportion of open space and supports a large number of fl ora and fauna species, both indigenous to the region and introduced from around the world. The high levels of biodiversity are partly the result of historical planning decisions that did not deliberately consider biodiversity yet inadvertently favoured many plants and animals. However, Melbourne is currently at a tipping point whereby continued urban growth is likely to result in a loss of biodiversity if it is not explicitly and carefully considered in planning, policy and management. Enhancing biodiversity into the future will be aided by a reconciliation of underlying tensions between (1) growth and conservation and (2) the management of 'native' and 'exotic' vegetation that are currently embedded in a range of governance structures and public attitudes. This would enable the implementation of urban design that promotes biodiversity across the city as a whole.

In all the debate on theorizing cities from and for the south, discussions of health remain relatively silent amid the rush to f ind adequate explanatory frameworks for a rapidly changing urban reality. This silence remains despite the fact that the broad canon of urban studies has actually been remarkably prolif ic in responding to Robinson’s (2006: x) assertion that urban theory has ‘excluded many cities and their citizens from their accounts of the excitement and potential of city life’ by corralling cities of the south into developmental frameworks, rather than theories of urban modernity. Indeed, while McFarlane (2008: 341) has argued that the south still exists as an ‘urban shadow’ on the ‘edges of urban theory’, there now seems to be an increasing movement towards making the shadows smaller (Myers 2011; Roy 2011; Roy 2009; Watson 2009b; Parnell and Robinson 2012). Inventive work is being undertaken in urban studies, but it remains the case, as Pieterse (2008: 1) contends, that contemporary studies of cities of the global south are bifurcated between those assuming an ‘apocalyptic view’ and those ‘who display an irrepressible optimism about the possibility of solving the myriad problems that beset such cities’. In turn, whether framed by apocalypse or optimism, ‘the categorisation of poorer cities through the lens of developmentalism has often meant that they are discursively constructed as a “problem”’ (McFarlane 2008: 345). Here, the difference between the two perspectives stems from the degree to which urbanists believe that cities and their residents hold the solutions or represent only their inevitable downfall. In matters of health, this tension points to a critical set of conceptual and policy debates.

Abstract The demographic transition of the late 20th and early 21st centuries has shifted the locus of urbanizing populations from the global North to the global South. As the theoretical epicenter of urban scholars and policymakers adjusts to accommodate this transition, some realignment in how ideas are weighted and applied is inevitable. This recalibration, while not necessarily comfortable for those in established positions of intellectual power, is desirable and maybe even overdue. The overarching argument presented here is that recent work on neoliberalism, despite its quality and relevance for many places, will need to be "provincialized" in order to create intellectual space for alternative ideas that may be more relevant to cities where the majority of the world's urban population now resides. To this end, we explore the limits to the critique of neoliberalism—a perspective that has assumed hegemonic dimensions in the progressive geographical literature. In seeking post-neoliberal insights, we highlight two bodies of work that also address issues of urban injustice. The first is the largely practice-generated literature on poverty and its amalgamation into a resurgent literature focused on the right to the city. The second theoretical framework we explore as a counterpoint to the neoliberal crtitique is the nascent debate about the size and shape of the subnational state, arguing that it is time to bring to the fore the difficult question concerning the most appropriate form of urban government. Finally, we suggest that if the state is to be an important component in the urban developmental landscape, all sorts of initiatives in research and capacity-building will be needed, giving substantially greater attention to documenting urban change on hitherto under-researched cities, and learning from practice how to transform the theoretical canon to ensure 21st-century relevance. Keywords: right to the cityurban povertypost-neoliberalismstate/civil society interfacedevelopmental stateglobal Southgood citySouth African city

Africa, a continent exceptionally rich in biodiversity, is rapidly urbanizing. Africa's urbanization is manifest in the growth of its megacities as well as that of its smaller towns and cities. The conservation planning and practice will increasingly need to account for direct and indirect impacts of the continent's urbanization. The objective of our study is to pinpoint the outstanding challenges and opportunities afforded by the growing cities on the continent to the conservation goals and practices. While there have been many studies on the impacts of urbanization and development on conservation in Africa these studies tended to focus on specific issues. Here, we provide a synthesis of this body of work supported by new analysis. Urban areas, growing both in population and in land cover, pose threats to the integrity of the continent's ecosystems and biodiversity but their growth also create opportunities for conservation. The burgeoning urban populations, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, increase the strain on already insufficient infrastructure and bring new governance challenges. Yet, Africa's ecosystems can serve as foundations for green infrastructure to serve the needs of its urban populations while safeguarding fragile biodiversity. Overall, while worsening social problems overshadow the concerns for biodiversity there are also promising initiatives to bring these concerns into the fold to address social, institutional, and ecological challenges that emerge with the continued urbanization of the continent.