Meanwhile, middle-income cities are often cited as extreme examples of urban environmental distress. A stylised account of an urban environmental transition that can help explain these superficially contradictory claims in terms of the different environmental burdens typically associated with cities at different levels of affluence. International development assistance should help to correct this injustice. In poor cities, it is appropriate to emphasize local environmental issues of particular concern to the urban poor. Supporting locally driven environmental improvement efforts to address these issues is a suitable role for development assistance.
Global interests are critical to environmental management in affluent cities.
It is debatable, however, whether initiatives to prevent poorer cities from increasing their global burdens qualify as development assistance. An exclusive focus on city-level environmental burdens will tend to omit the most critical concerns of both the urban poor and future generations. Especially in middle-income industrializing cities, however, these may be the priority. However, this is generally not the case, except perhaps in relation to the living environments of the poor themselves. The very large health burdens that arise from these risks are also a major cause or contributor to poverty.