EN
The Higson compactification $X̅^{d}$ of a non-compact proper metric space (X,d) is rarely equivalent to the Stone-Čech compactification βX. We give a characterization of such spaces. Also, we show that for each non-compact locally compact separable metric space, βX is equivalent to $lim\limits_{⟵ }{X̅^{d}: d$ is a proper metric on X which is compatible with the topology of X}. The approximation method of the above type is illustrated by some examples and applications.