More than half of the world's population lives in urban areas. It is forecasted that another 20% will move to cities within the next 40 years, most of which happened in developing countries. The rapid urbanization questions the sustainability. Cities require huge quantities of energy and materials and produce large quantities of waste products, raising the problems of energy shortage, water pollution, soil pollution, and air quality deterioration. This special issue will focus on the problems we are facing during this challenging process.

We invite researchers to contribute to original research articles as well as review articles that will present the latest understanding on the energy and environment problems during the rapid urbanization, the most advanced technical work on the improvement of energy supply in cities, including energy efficient construction and usage of renewable energy, and environment control and protection achievement, including water and solid waste treatment and air quality chemistry and control. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Latest research on energy efficient construction in cities
• Advances in the usage of renewable energy in cities
• Advances in chemistry and technologies in waste water treatment
• Latest research on energy saving and pollution chemistry in municipal solid waste incineration
• Advances in the research on urban air pollution chemistry, control, and relationship with energy use

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/tswj/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/submit/journals/tswj/environmental.chemistry/ene/ according to the following timetable: