Towards prosperous sustainable cities: A multiscalar urban sustainability assessment approach

• Published in: Habitat international 2015-01, Vol.45 (1), p.36-46
• Main Authors: Yigitcanlar, Tan, Dur, Fatih, Dizdaroglu, Didem
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Australia; Cities; City prosperity; Environment; Evaluation; Multiscalar approach; Prosperity; Sustainability; Sustainability indicators; Sustainable urban development; Urban areas; Urban development; Urban sustainability assessment
• ISSN: 0197-3975; 1873-5428
• DOI: 10.1016/j.habitatint.2014.06.033

Prosperity and environmental sustainability of cities are inextricably linked. Cities can only maintain their prosperity when environmental and social objectives are fully integrated with economic goals. Sustainability assessment helps policy-makers decide what actions they should and should not take to make our cities more sustainable. There are numerous models available for measuring and evaluating urban sustainability; they focus their analysis on a specific scale—i.e., micro, mezzo, or macro. In most cases, these results are inadequate for the other scales, though generating reliable results for that particular scale. The paper introduces a multiscalar urban sustainability approach by linking two sustainability assessment models evaluate sustainability performances in micro- and mezzo-levels and generate multiscalar results for the macro-level. The paper tests this approach in Gold Coast, Australia, and sheds light on the development of a more accurate sustainability analysis that may be interconnected with UN-Habitat's City Prosperity Index. •This paper introduces a multiscalar urban sustainability assessment approach.•It puts the proposed assessment model into test in a case study.•The research sheds light on the development of a more accurate sustainability analysis.•It discusses suitability of the multiscalar approach for the City Prosperity Index.