The paper addresses the general issue of the progressive, worldwide increase in urban pollution against the background of policy, regulation and institutional development. It is evidenced that society as a whole has not learnt from early European experience but has followed the same route and realised the same problems as the phenomenon of urbanisation has spread round the world. Thus the pollution problems now experienced in, for example, Sao Paulo in Brazil are essentially the same as those experienced in Manchester in the UK 150 years ago and, interestingly, but disappointingly, the solutions are also seen to be essentially the same. Examination of the development of environmental policy at a national level shows this to be an approach developed in the 1970s and notes the need for the inclusion of environmental economics at regional, national and global levels if the true environmental costs of particular policies and actions are to be determined. On regulatory frameworks the paper considers the relative merits of various management approaches including that of the Environmental Quality Objective and the Uniform Emission Standard; methods of achieving public involvement to influence the performance of the appropriate organisations are considered in the section on Institutional frameworks.