Case Study
Urban Sustainability Assessment
Sustainable development, i.e., the achievement of economic growth that improves the lives of the people without exhausting the environment or other resources, is especially critical in developing countries, where mass urbanization is taking place at a time when man’s impact on the environment has reached a critical juncture. Sustainability assessment in different levels and decision making frameworks has been widely studied by numerous researchers.
Urban areas are recognized as having a major influence towards sustainable development, and thus it is essential to develop robust and comprehensive decision making tools for the assessment of sustainability in the urban context. Evaluating urban sustainability in a set of cities may provide a valuable tool to identify best practices, which can serve as points of reference for crafting future urban policies. Moreover, such an approach can also identify current advantages and disadvantages of the examined cities and evaluate the potential impact and effectiveness of development policies.
The case study prepared for the Summer School involved the evaluation of urban sustainability for 12 cities based on 23 indicators, covering social, environmental and economic aspects. A description of the case study project is available here.