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Although there is no consensus on the definition of the peri-urban interface, there is growing recognition among development professionals and institutions that rural and urban features tend increasingly to co-exist within cities and beyond their limits. There is also recognition that the urban-rural dichotomy that is deeply ingrained in planning systems is inadequate for dealing with processes of environmental and developmental change in the peri-urban context. This paper argues that environmental planning and management of the peri-urban interface cannot simply be based on the extrapolation of planning approaches and tools applied in rural and urban areas. Instead, it needs to be based on the construction of an approach that responds to the specific environment, social, economic and institutional aspects of the peri-urban interface. The paper also outlines approaches to environmental planning and management in the peri-urban interface, examining its specificity in terms of both the challenges faced and possible approaches for implementation.

Summary The concept of urban metabolism, referring to the exchange processes that produce the urban environment, has inspired new ways of thinking about how cities can be made sustainable and has also raised criticisms about the specific social and economic arrangements in which some forms of flow are prioritized or marginalized within the city. This article explores how the concept of urban metabolism travels across disciplines, using a comparative analysis of different approaches to urban metabolism within industrial ecology, urban ecology, ecological economics, political economy and political ecology. The analysis reveals six main themes emerging within interdisciplinary boundaries in relation to urban metabolism, and how this concept enables new understandings of (1) the city as an ecosystem, (2) material and energy flows within the city, (3) economic–material relations within the city, (4) economic drivers of rural–urban relationships, (5) the reproduction of urban inequality, and (6) attempts at resignifying the city through new visions of socioecological relationships. The article suggests potential areas for cross‐disciplinary synergies around the concept of urban metabolism and opens up avenues for industrial ecology to engage with the politics and the governance of urban development by examining the city and its metabolism.

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Significant lessons can be drawn from grassroots experiences of coping with extreme weather for reducing the vulnerability of the urban poor to climate change. This paper examines the household and community coping strategies used by low-income households living in Korail, the largest informal settlement in Dhaka. This includes how they use physical, economic and social means to reduce risk, reduce losses and facilitate recovery from flooding and high temperatures, and shows how grassroots adaptation differs according to the level of risk from flooding. The paper also discusses how local planning and governance mechanisms aimed at adaptation can support these coping strategies, including mainstreaming them into adaptation plans that can be scaled up to the citywide level.