Fossil fuel depletion and soil and water pollution gave impetus to the development of a novel perspective of sustainable development. In addition to the use of plant biomass for ethanol production, plants can be used to reduce the concentration of heavy metals in soil and water. Due to tolerance to high levels of metals, many plant species, crops, non-crops, medicinal, and pharmaceutical energy plants are well-known metal hyperaccumulators. This paper focuses on studies investigating the potential of Miscanthus sp., Beta vulgaris L., Saccharum sp., Ricinus communis L. Prosopis sp. and Arundo donax L. in heavy metal removal and biofuel production. Phytoremediation employing these plants showed great potential for bioaccumulation of Co, Cr, Cu, Al, Pb, Ni, Fe, Cd, Zn, Hg, Se, etc. This review presents the potential of lignocellulose plants to remove pollutants being a valuable substrate for biofuel production. Also, pretreat-ments, dealing with toxic biomass, and biofuel production are discussed.

Environmental hazards have motivated the development of a novel perspective of urban environmental quality as a planning strategy prerequisite for the integration of greenery resources in urban infrastructures. The accurate genotype stress response presents a condition for urban adaptation of plants. The goal of this review paper is to present phytoremediation at molecular levels via genes related to transport, accumulation and sequestration/detoxification of heavy metals from the environment. The overexpression/alteration of the native plant-specific gene(s) and transgenic plants whose metal-uptake proteins and metal-efflux proteins enable efficient metal uptake and transport, give rise to transgenic approaches. In a line with this, overexpression/alteration of a gene(s) encoding for phytochelatins and glutathione increase the sequestration of toxic HMs in the vacuoles. Since tolerance to high levels of metals by hyperaccumulators is under genetic control, many studies used genetic approaches to define the genetic determinants of these hyperaccumulators. Many plant species, particularly members of the Brassicaceae family are known heavy metal hyperaccumulators. This paper examines molecular aspects of hyperaccumulator plant species from genera Brassica, Noccea, Alyssum and Arabidopsis in phytoremediation of heavy metal polluted environments, and provides an overview of potential transferable genes that could improve metal tolerance and/or accumulation, as the major targets for phytoremediation. Therefore, plant species identified to have the potential to grow and remediate the heavy metal polluted urban environments require greater attention.

The notion of sustainable development in a line with local economic development emerged in the seventies of the 20th century when local authorities in the western countries realized that their local communities had begun abandoning mobile capital, which resulted in limiting their economic potentials and opportunities for citizens' employment. This necessitated both a detailed study of the local economic potentials, the determination of best ways to use, maintain and develop them, and a thorough examination of the impediments to the local community's economic development. Local economic development is also seen as a process of certain changes, where, in the competition for the market, economic and country dominance, local governments, despite their status as the lowest level of public administration, are recognized as competitors in the market and, in collaboration with the economic sector, try to be more innovative and more competitive among them.