Culture, an intellectual capital of a city, is accumulated through the intellect and wisdom of the government, citizens, businesses and other organizations. Cities regardless of their size are seeking their own distinguishing features and positions. By combining culture and creativity to improve international visibility, cities can develop new potentials, create job opportunities and boost economic growth. Therefore, cultural and creative industries have become the core industries that cities worldwide actively seek to develop; furthermore, various city governments have unanimously agreed that the creative industry will effectively improve urban economic competitiveness. This study investigated how the creative industry improved urban competitiveness, developed relevant assessment indexes and formulated policies for developing the creative industry. First, the fuzzy Delphi method was adopted to determine the indexes for assessing the creative industry’s positive influence on urban competitiveness. Subsequently, the analytic hierarchy process and the analytic network process were integrated to establish a model for assessing city-based creative industry development policies. City governments seeking to promote such policies can refer to this model. Finally, an importance-performance analysis was performed to investigate the satisfaction for policies related to creative industries, providing a reference for governments to promote pertinent policies. The results of this study indicated that the indexes of innovation capability, industrial cooperation, innovation incubation and industry-government-academia integration are crucial bases for cities to develop the creative industry. In addition, the policies of industrial R&D and clustering, talent training and industrial consulting and expanding industrial and marketing channels and networks can be adopted to enhance creative industry development. Full article

Local industries are crucial for enhancing urban competitiveness and are closely related to national economic performance. To sustainably develop local industries, a set of assessment indices should be formulated in addition to factors such as geographical environments, cultural history, development processes, and industrial structures for governments to promote development policies while satisfying the goal of sustainable industrial development. This study first adopted the fuzzy Delphi method to construct the indices for assessing local industrial development, referred to the action plans for the six key industries formulated by the Executive Yuan of Taiwan, and subsequently integrated the analytic hierarchy process and analytic network process to determine the order of priority for policies facilitating local industrial development for future reference. The results indicated that infrastructure, innovative research and development, and government policies are crucial bases for local industrial development. Furthermore, this study adopted Taoyuan to verify these indices and compiled expert suggestions to indicate that the government should prioritize the development of the biotechnology, green energy, and medical care industries. When developing local industries in the future, a set of assessment standards and policy analyses should be established for the government to enhance local industrial development and thus increase international competitive advantages by fully ascertaining the factors for industrial success and the characteristics of local advantages. Full article

The extreme change of climate has recently influenced numerous cities around the world. This change has resulted in a higher frequency and increased intensity of natural disasters. Habitat and development types even cause complex disaster types. In 2005, the report of Natural Disaster Hotspots-A Global Risk Analysis declared that 73% of world population and land area are exposed to more than three types of natural disasters. Ninety-nine percent of the land area and population are exposed to natural disasters worldwide. These above records are much higher than those of other countries worldwide. Taiwanese people face high risks of natural disasters. The present study attempts to look into sustainable development policies that seek to prevent disasters through an expert questionnaire. The results of the questionnaire are further analysed with methodologies of the fuzzy Delphi method (FDM) and analytic network process (ANP). The analyses suggest that disaster prevention strategies should be prioritised in urban planning, accounting for the effects of climate change. In addition to disaster prevention and mitigation, pre-disaster preparation in daily life is critical because it ensures the execution of appropriate emergency responses in the event of a disaster. Although the current mainstream environmental policy emphasises non-structural mitigation, conventional structural mitigation remains imperative. By and large, the priority of disaster prevention strategy in Taiwan must be land use management and planning, as well as the public advocacy and training. Full article