Next Article in Journal
Spatiotemporal Effects of Main Impact Factors on Residential Land Price in Major Cities of China
Previous Article in Journal
Assessing the User Resistance to Recommender Systems in Exhibition
 
 
Font Type:
Arial Georgia Verdana
Font Size:
Aa Aa Aa
Line Spacing:
Column Width:
Background:
Review

A Systematic Review of Urban Sustainability Assessment Literature

Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Furman University, Greenville, SC 29613, USA
Sustainability 2017, 9(11), 2048; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9112048
Submission received: 11 October 2017 / Revised: 2 November 2017 / Accepted: 3 November 2017 / Published: 8 November 2017
(This article belongs to the Section Sustainable Urban and Rural Development)

Abstract

:
As the world rapidly urbanizes, there is much focus on achieving sustainability outcomes within cities. Accomplishing this goal requires not only envisioning sustainable cities and implementing strategies, but it also demands assessing progress towards sustainable urban development. Despite a growing literature on sustainability assessment, there is room to further understand the application of sustainability assessment in urban contexts. This paper presents a systematic review of urban sustainability assessment literature to (1) identify the most common methods used for urban sustainability assessment, (2) identify the most common framings for urban sustainability assessment, and (3) identify the most common categories for organizing indicators that measure urban sustainability. This research finds that urban sustainability assessment in general lacks a unifying framing and that it could be better aligned with common sustainability principles. The paper provides recommendations for future urban sustainability assessment research, including the employment of mixed-methods research among other strategies. In closing, this research offers a generic framework around which to structure urban sustainability assessment and within which to assign indicators for measuring progress towards sustainable urban development.

1. Introduction

As the world rapidly urbanizes, achieving sustainability in cities is quickly becoming a global concern [1,2]. Indeed, 54% of the world population was urban in 2014, and the global urban population is projected to reach 66% by 2050 [3]. While cities can be centers of innovation and cross-cultural collaboration, the ecological footprint of the world’s cities extends far beyond these urban centers’ physical boundaries, and glaring socio-economic disparities exist within and between cities [4]. As such, scholars and practitioners are seeking and implementing strategies to shrink cities’ impacts on the planet while improving quality of life for all peoples, both today and in the future.
Given the concerted efforts to achieve urban sustainability, there is also a need to set goals and targets and track progress towards urban sustainability outcomes. In this light, sustainability assessment provides a framing for better defining and understanding the sustainability enterprise for multiple domains, including urban development [5,6,7,8].
Urban sustainability is one topic area to which sustainability assessment is being applied, and urban sustainability assessment is a quickly growing subfield of sustainability assessment (see [9,10]); however, the literature is more developed for sustainability assessment in generic terms (see [5,6]) as well as in application to other areas of focus. This paper seeks to better understand how one might operationalize urban sustainability assessment to guide sustainable urban development. This research does so through a systematic review of urban sustainability assessment literature to meet the following objectives: (1) identify the most common methods used for urban sustainability assessment, (2) identify the most common framings for urban sustainability assessment, and (3) identify the most common categories for organizing indicators that measure urban sustainability. By reviewing the literature guided by these objectives, this paper reports on general themes and trends in urban sustainability assessment literature.
This paper understands sustainability as an endeavor to bring society within the Earth’s planetary boundaries while lifting the global population above a basic standard of living [11,12,13,14]. Given this framing, sustainable cities would be urban areas whose surroundings are planned and managed to not drive environmental pressures beyond key thresholds while providing for livelihood and equity concerns of all inhabitants. To measure and assess progress towards this undertaking, there are multiple ways to frame indicators for understanding urban sustainability. In one example of framing, Forman and Wu [15] identify seven key areas of impact from urban expansion: natural vegetation, agricultural land, clean water, jobs, housing, transport, and communities. Here, there is a balanced perspective on urban development’s impact on natural resources, natural services, basic human needs, and livelihoods.
Sustainability assessment is one tool that can be employed for better conceptualizing and defining urban sustainability. There exist countless resources on sustainability assessment across sectors and scales, as well as a growing body of research on sustainability assessment for the urban context. At the urban scale, sustainability assessment typically revolves around identifying and measuring indicators, and there are papers published that provide indicator sets numbering in the hundreds (see [16,17,18,19]).
Although there is an array of types of potential sustainability assessment frameworks [20], and identifying and measuring indicators is often at the heart of sustainability assessment, indicator selection for urban sustainability assessment is not often guided by a theoretical framework because literature framing sustainability assessment has often targeted national and global scales instead [9,21,22,23]. This may be problematic, as key principles of sustainable development should be followed when selecting sustainability indicators [24].
As a result, urban sustainability assessment often follows a three-silo approach, selecting and organizing indicators by economic, social, and environmental concerns, which impairs ones’ ability to understand the interdependence of these three domains [9,10,22]. Davidson et al. [9] argue that this triple bottom line approach to sustainability assessment is an oversimplification of a complex problem and that the approach also fails to award equal or appropriate weight to each of the three pillars. Ding et al. [10] expand on this argument and claim that urban sustainability assessment must look beyond the three pillars and consider also “spatial, chronological and logical (64)” dimensions as well. Gibson [6], writing on sustainability assessment in general terms, asserts that sustainability assessment needs to be designed in an integrative approach that can match the integrative nature of the science.
Following these critiques, the inability for sustainability assessment to cross pillars is reductionist in nature [25], and a siloed approach carries limitations. For instance, weak theoretical framing allows for the possibility for indicators to be selected based on data availability, leading to cherry picking of available indicators without thinking through integration [26]. Furthermore, simply grouping indicators by pillar can be both ineffective and inefficient: a proliferation of indicator sets creates a challenge for comparing assessments across diverse cities, complicating the interpretation of results for both researchers and policy makers.
As cities are complex systems nested within and interconnected with unique ecological systems, with each city defined by its own cultural and historical context, it is quite challenging to adequately select from the hundreds—or possibly thousands—of indicators to apply a uniform assessment to all urban areas around the world [27]. Therefore, it may prove more beneficial—and possible to instead align a generic urban sustainability assessment around a common set of guiding principles that frame criteria and indicators unique to each individual city. There are a number of theoretical frameworks developed for un-contextualized, or generic, sustainability assessment (see [6] for one example). In these cases, sustainability assessment is framed around guiding principles, for which scholars and practitioners can set goals and objectives as well as tangible indicators to measure progress.

2. Materials and Methods

This study presents a systematic literature review [28,29,30] of the literature on urban sustainability assessment, following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines [31]. The specific methods for this study, following the cited protocol, are presented in Section 2.1. After a search for literature, the research employed a content analysis to identify themes and organize qualitative data from the literature to better understand how sustainability assessment is applied in urban contexts.

2.1. Systematic Literature Review

The search term
“(sustain* (assessment OR appraisal) AND (principle* or goal* or objective* or indicator*) AND (urban OR public OR community))”
was used in Web of Science, Academic Search Premier, and GreenFILE. Web of Science was used because it is a large search system that employs multiple databases. While Web of Science results can be limited by citation distributions, it reliably searches across publishers and does not bias towards journals published by any one company. While Web of Science may apply too much rigor in its searches, it was chosen over Google Scholar, which does not apply enough rigor in vetting included resources. To address the limitations of Web of Science, Academic Search Premier was selected to capture additional sources. GreenFILE was used for its ability to return resources from scholarly as well as governmental and general-interest sources to ensure a diversity of included resources. The date parameters 2001–2017 were used, which the databases cover. The date range was used to narrow results to those published during the period after sustainability science was identified as a unique discipline [32], and the search inspected all records published until April 2017. Only peer-reviewed journal articles published in English were considered. A grey literature search was performed with the exact same search terms using Google’s general search engine. Also, leading practitioner-based assessment protocols that were identified in the included articles were also used for the study. These protocols include LEED-ND, BREEAM Communities, DGNB, CASBEE-UD, UN Shanghai Manual, and Abu Dhabi’s Pearl Rating System. The review was restricted to articles regarding sustainability assessment in urban contexts, but articles generated by the search terms focusing on generic sustainability assessment (for instance [6]) were included as well. Though such studies do not address urban assessment specifically, they are often cited as grounding for a wide range of sustainability assessment methods and have been cited in urban sustainability assessment literature [33,34]. In total, these search methods identified 3163 records.
The review includes studies from urban development to regional scales as well as cases from around the world. Diverse scales were used based on the need to situate a city within a multi-scale context [35] and design sustainability interventions that integrate across spatial scales [36]. Including cases from diverse contexts around the world can create confusion for analysis, but ultimately excluding cases based on location would also lose valuable lessons and insights. For instance, while cities around the world may face different realities particular to their individual contexts, there is value in reading broadly across all available cases. While a study of urban sustainability in Manila, Philippines may identify eradication of HIV/AIDS and malaria as urban development goals [37], case studies from the Global North may not identify these illnesses as relevant concerns, but many do articulate public health as important [38,39]. Furthermore, megacities in the Global South face much different realities than cities between 500,000 and one million residents in the United States. While realities of slum settlements and public housing may be different, in both cases, access to good, safe, affordable housing is a clear need. As such, despite stark contrasts in urban realities, thematic coding of the research on urban sustainability assessment can yield overarching elements that might be relevant to diverse contexts. In this vein, this research draws on lessons from the wide array of urban areas around the world.
The review excluded redundant studies. For instance, Mori and Yamashita [40] provide a methodological framework for developing a city sustainability index. Mori et al. [41] then apply that same framework in an empirical study. Although the studies are different, they apply the same framework by the same author, and thus Mori et al. [41] was excluded to avoid double counting the indicator categories. Countering this exclusion criterion, some studies cited the same frameworks, for instance multiple authors employed the frameworks established by the most ubiquitously used rating systems (i.e., LEED-ND, BREEAM Communities, etc.). Each of these studies were included in order for the analysis to count how many unique authors used this framing, whereas the example at the beginning of this paragraph demonstrates a scholar continuing to use their own framework. Figure 1 presents a PRISMA flow diagram of the literature search and review.

2.2. Content Analysis

Once the 69 sources were selected for inclusion in the study, each source was read in full for a qualitative content analysis. Information regarding sustainability assessment applied either in urban contexts or generically was recorded in a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet was organized by columns for categories that were established a priori: principles, goals, objectives, and indicators. As the literature was reviewed, additional categories were added: themes, criteria, and sub-indicators. Data from the literature was added to corresponding cells under the categories as they were identified by the author.
Across the literature, there exist significant inconsistencies in how terms are defined. For instance, what one author considers a criterion, another might treat as an indicator. Likewise, there is much conflation between goals and objectives. As such, for the analysis, the data was coded in MaxQDA under more general terms, including “principles”, “dimensions”, and “categories”. These designations are further explained with the research results.
Despite the efforts to systematically assemble a sound set of studies, there are of course limitations to this research. First, the study is limited to journal articles found by the selected databases. Second, the content analysis is based on the results reported by other authors, and there is little space to control for quality and completeness of others’ results as well as the selective biases of the authors. Still, this research presents a broad reading of the literature and finds trends consistently reported by others.

3. Results

Table 1 presents the articles included in the analysis. For each article, the table lists a citation, the general topic of the article, the spatial scale analyzed, and the location of study. Some of the sources were theoretical in nature, or did not include empirical research tied to a specific geography. These particular sources are noted as “Not scale or sector specific” (column: “Spatial Scale”) and “Not spatially explicit” (column: “Locations”).
The first analysis looked to the assessment methods that are used across the literature. Sustainability assessment may be conducted by employing a variety of methods. Table 2 lists the research methods for organizing indicators used in the reviewed articles and shows the number of studies that applied each method.
A plurality of studies organized sustainability assessments around the selection and measuring of indicators. In most cases, indicators are here framed around traditional sustainability pillars or unclear framings. The next most common approach is to frame urban sustainability assessment around rating systems that group indicators under a series of criteria and tally points that a city or neighborhood earns for meeting certain criteria. Principle-based frameworks for urban sustainability assessment registered as a distant third, with six sources taking such an approach.
The next analysis of the literature’s content sought to identify guiding principles for urban sustainability assessment. Admittedly, such a framing around guiding principles was not strong throughout the literature. Gibson [6] provided the clearest framing, and his generic criteria for sustainability assessment, though not explicitly written for the urban context, has been applied across multiple contexts and was used as an organizing theme for two other papers used in this study [33,34], and other authors articulated principles that if not precisely the same as Gibson’s criteria, aligned with the intent. In these cases, such principles were coded by Gibson’s terminology. Table 3 presents the principles and identifies the number of times each principle was found throughout the literature.
Rather than framing urban sustainability assessment around standard sustainability principles, a more common practice was to organize assessments under a pillars of sustainability approach. Here, the most conventional structure is to select and group indicators to measure the environmental, economic, and social performance of cities. Papers reviewed here also recommended additional pillars to augment the traditional three pillars perspective. Table 4 presents the pillars identified through the content analysis, here described as dimensions of sustainability, and reports the number of times each was used in the literature.
Twenty-six of the reviewed articles framed urban sustainability assessment through some combination of the traditional three pillars (environmental, economic, social). Of this total, one organized strictly around the three pillars, and 13 followed the three pillars but added an additional dimension, such as institutional to account for good governance arrangements. In addition, an integrative dimension appeared in some papers, allowing for tracking indicators at the interface of two pillars (i.e., socio-economic, social-environmental, environmental-economic).
Because there was not a consistent definition of terms across the literature, the data collected, whether it be framed as principles, pillars, dimensions, criteria, indicators, sub-indicators, etc., was ultimately catalogued and organized by category. Table 5 presents the categories for urban sustainability assessment that appeared across the literature. Here, the table lists the categories themselves, and it also states how many times an element related to each category appeared in the literature. For this, the table shows total instances in the literature, but it also reports the number of unique instances a relevant element appeared for each category. For example, assessment elements related to land use appeared 84 times and were used by 36 of the reviewed resources. However, across these 84 instances, many were repetitive: land use was mentioned generically 15 times, green and open spaces were discussed on 12 occasions, and urban form was studied in nine cases.

4. Discussion

4.1. Urban Sustainability Assessment Methods in the Literature

As noted in the Results (Table 2), a plurality of studies employed indicator- or index-oriented frameworks (25 studies) and rating system frameworks (16 studies), which are similar in nature. This was not a surprising finding, as the general literature on urban sustainability assessment acknowledges that this is the most typical approach [9,21,22,23]. Although the indicator-based framework is the most common analytical tool, one should not necessarily blindly apply such an assessment protocol for future studies, as there are concerns in the literature that this approach is too often not grounded in clear sustainability principles and that indicators for urban sustainability assessment should be selected and organized through a more integrative perspective [6,10,24]. The following Section 4.2 and Section 4.3 expand on this concern.

4.2. Sustainability Principles in the Literature

With calls in the literature to guide sustainability assessment with clear, integrative sustainability principles, it is necessary to ask how many of the included studies applied such a framing (Table 3). In fact, grounding urban sustainability assessment in foundational principles of sustainability science was not a common practice at all. Gibson [6] provided the clearest framing, and his generic criteria for sustainability assessment were applied by two other studies [33,34]. Based on the studies reviewed here, there is not a consensus for principle-based urban sustainability assessment frameworks, which creates an important research gap for future studies in this field.

4.3. Sustainability Dimensions in the Literature

The literature points out that sustainability dimensions (i.e., three pillars plus additionally proposed dimensions) present a common framing for sustainability indicator selection [9,10,22]. Table 4 supports this claim, showing that 22 studies applied a three pillars framework and 26 organized around environmental and social sustainability. This finding raises two concerns. First, other scholars have already questioned if a three pillars model is not an overly simple, reductionist approach to understanding complex problems that can lead to cherry-picking only convenient data [9,25,26]. Second, if a bulk of studies (perhaps unsophisticatedly) argue that sustainability is the intersection of environmental, social, and economic dimensions, then the set of studies that do not evenly apply all three dimensions might not be considering a full conceptualization of sustainability as it is conventionally conceived. These concerns align with the calls for more integrative and principles-based assessment frameworks.

4.4. Urban Sustainability Categories in the Literature

The results in Table 5 are not surprising, as the categories represented in the literature are common issues in urban planning and development. The research question for future studies is how these categories can be operationalized as goals that strive towards pursuing guiding principles [95]. Then, indicators can be assigned to measuring the identified goals. Under such an arrangement, urban sustainability assessment would then become goal-oriented. [5,54,56,59]. Identifying actionable goals and objectives for each category and then organizing them around a framework of integrative principles might also allow for scholars and practitioners to better articulate, track progress towards, and assess the alignment between areas such as land use, transportation, and housing. In this case, such a framing would identify these categories (and their underlying goals and objectives) as critical to achieving resource efficiency, integrity of our social-ecological systems, and social equity outcomes.

4.5. Recommendations

Based on the literature, I offer here recommendations for future urban sustainability assessment research:
Standardize terms and concepts across urban sustainability assessment studies: The discussion in Section 4.1, Section 4.2, Section 4.3 and Section 4.4 demonstrates that there is no clear organizational structure for urban sustainability assessment across the literature. The literature provided an array of methods and frameworks, as well as a myriad of organizational headers, with the most common being principles, categories, goals, objectives, practices, themes, criteria, indicators, and sub-indicators. Furthermore, across the reviewed papers, there was not necessarily common agreement as to what might constitute a category, a theme, or an indicator. What might be a criterion to one author might be presented as an indicator by another. Some studies framed assessments through a hierarchy of goals/objectives/indicators (for instance [56,71]), while others organized around categories/themes (for instance [35,37]). Likewise, some studies organized around guiding principles (for instance [33,34]), while others organized around the three pillars (for instance [59,75]). It is perfectly acceptable for disparate scholars to develop and apply unique frameworks, but it becomes challenging to draw conclusions across studies when the terminology they use is inconsistent with each other’s. Therefore, it is critical for future studies to explore a common lexicon for the field.
Ground urban sustainability assessment in core sustainability principles: While scholars may design their own research framings, there is a clear need to further explore the efficacy of a principle-based assessment framework. The most prevalent organizing structure found in the literature is to base assessment around the three pillars, or in many cases the three pillars plus additional dimensions (Table 4). While this is the most common approach, there is ample debate in the literature regarding if such a framing is sufficient ([9]; as noted in Section 1 and Section 4.3). One compelling option is to organize assessment around sustainability values and principles [25]. Within urban sustainability assessment literature, this is an underrepresented approach and requires further research. For instance, Gibson’s eight criteria were the most coherent set of principles identified in this literature review, but there are arguments in the literature that core value sets should be limited to no more than five values [96,97]. A concise and coherent set of principles would provide a more integrative approach to planning for and assessing urban sustainability, helping to avoid the pitfalls of oversimplification and reductionism [9,25].
Frame urban sustainability assessment around implementable goals that lead towards guiding principles: Sustainability science is a solution-oriented discipline [98], and framing urban sustainability assessment around goals for pursuing sustainability principles creates opportunity to employ urban sustainability assessment not just as a tool for ex post facto research, but to also guide sustainability visions and strategies for sustainable urban development. Using goals and objectives that work towards guiding principles allows researchers and practitioners to then select indicators that track genuine progress towards sustainability outcomes. As there is no unifying organizational structure embraced by the literature, a goal-based framework [20,56,59] would orient the descriptive-analytical task of sustainability assessment around the creation of solutions to sustainability problems. As such, urban sustainability assessment can then be more of a driver of change than a summative assessment tool. In this vein, urban sustainability assessment can be used as a visioning tool [95] to identify aspirational goals and objectives while also being implemented as a post-facto assessment tool as well. This proposal is supported by Reed et al. [99], who propose that sustainability indicators should not just be applied as a measurement tool, but rather they can be utilized to identify problems, set goals, and establish management strategies as well. Indeed, an evaluation tool’s utility may be maximized when it can be used as an input for planning interventions and setting sustainability visions [79]. While this paragraph identifies calls in the literature for such a framing, it is not presently the most common practice, and there is little agreement across the literature regarding what constitutes goals, objectives, and other organizing terms. Therefore, there is presently a gap in the literature where goal-oriented urban sustainability assessments can become more ubiquitous and standardized.
Draw from diverse methods to perform urban sustainability assessment: To facilitate a holistic interpretation of sustainability, it may be necessary to employ mixed methods. For instance, assessing ecosystem services of a neighborhood’s green infrastructure may tell how a neighborhood performs in carbon storage, biodiversity protection, or stormwater management, but such a study would need to be paired with a material flow analysis to determine if the neighborhood’s built environment is consuming too much raw material or generating too much waste and emissions. Furthermore, without a governance study of how a vision was created or policy was set, it is impossible to judge if the process was fair and just or if outcomes meet the needs and interests of marginalized populations. Therefore, one might need to use material flow analysis, ecosystem services assessment, economic modeling, and include social indicators to generate a robust assessment. Such a mixed-methods approach may create challenges for prioritizing tradeoffs (for instance, balancing resource conservation with the need to create more equitable access to potentially scarce resources). Again, this highlights the need for more integrative perspectives on sustainability, whereas assessments organized around the siloed three pillars may overlook these tensions.

4.6. Limitations

There are some limitations to this analysis. For instance, this paper strictly reports what was found in the literature using the defined search parameters and screening methods. Also, one must apply a filter when interpreting the literature. The category economy provides a clear example. Economic growth was an underlying goal for many papers that discussed urban economies (for instance [71,91]). There is much discussion in the literature questioning if economic growth is incongruous with sustainability [100,101]. Given this ongoing debate and the fact that our global economy is surpassing biophysical limits at the planetary scale [11,14], one must ask what role urban economic growth can and should play in sustainable urban development, and what implications this debate might have for principles such as sustainable livelihoods. Therefore, a more accurate determination of the sustainability of a city’s economy may ask whether the city provides meaningful livelihood opportunities for all inhabitants while maintaining its natural resource base and not compromising the quality of its surrounding natural environment. Under this perspective, there is not a clear indicator, such as GDP, that would provide a simple, digestible picture; however, such an assessment of a locale’s economy would be more authentic from a strong sustainability perspective. This point highlights the weaknesses of siloed assessments based around the three pillars model and promotes the interest in more integrative conceptualizations and assessments of sustainable urban development [9,10,22].

5. Conclusions

This paper reviewed the literature on urban sustainability assessment to identify the most common methods, framings and categorical topics that have been used to-date. Through an analysis of the literature, this paper concludes that the most common methods and framings—organizing large indicator sets around the three pillars and other dimensions—may not be the best course for planning future urban sustainability assessments. Instead, a more integrative approach in which core sustainability principles guide a goal-based framework should be employed. There are examples of such studies in the literature, but the practice is not ubiquitous nor is it standardized at present.
This paper is limited by its reliance on other scholars self-reporting results in their own studies. Furthermore, there are language inconsistencies across the literature in terms of what scholars identify as principles, goals, objectives, themes, criteria, indicators, and such. Therefore, the analysis of the literature is based on this author’s interpretation of what is at times unclear work of others.
Still, this paper points to new research that would benefit the field of urban sustainability assessment. Primarily, future research will need to establish guiding principles (limited to five), build goal-oriented assessment frameworks under these principles, and test the frameworks with empirical assessment studies. This should be pursued in parallel with the development of a common lexicon to unify urban sustainability assessment literature. To be sure, there are already principle-based and goal-oriented studies published, but until this approach to urban sustainability assessment becomes more wide-spread and standardized, an understanding and research gap in this area will persist.

Acknowledgments

Funding: This work was supported by the David E. Shi Center for Sustainability (Furman University) Faculty Research Fellowship.

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.

References

  1. Newman, P.; Jennings, I. Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems; Island Press: Washington, DC, USA, 2008. [Google Scholar]
  2. Wu, J. Urban sustainability: An inevitable goal of landscape research. Landsc. Ecol. 2014, 25, 1–4. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  3. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision, Highlights; United Nations: New York, NY, USA, 2015. [Google Scholar]
  4. Keivani, R. A review of the main challenges to urban sustainability. Int. J. Urban Sustain. Dev. 2010, 1, 5–16. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  5. Pope, J.; Annandale, D.; Morrison-Saunders, A. Conceptualising sustainability assessment. Environ. Impact Assess. Rev. 2004, 24, 595–616. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  6. Gibson, R.B. Beyond the pillars: Sustainability assessment as a framework for effective integration of social, economic and ecological considerations in significant decision-making. J. Environ. Assess. Policy Manag. 2006, 8, 259–280. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  7. Ness, B.; Urbel-Piirsalu, E.; Anderberg, S.; Olsson, L. Categorising tools for sustainability assessment. Ecol. Econ. 2007, 60, 498–508. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  8. Kumar, R.; Murty, H.R.; Gupta, S.K.; Dikshit, A.K. An overview of sustainability assessment methodologies. Ecol. Indic. 2012, 15, 281–299. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  9. Davidson, K.M.; Kellett, J.; Wilson, L.; Pullen, S. Assessing urban sustainability from a social democratic perspective: A thematic approach. Local Environ. 2012, 17, 57–73. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  10. Ding, X.; Zhong, W.; Shearmur, R.G.; Zhang, X.; Huisingh, D. An inclusive model for assessing the sustainability of cities in developing countries - trinity of cities' sustainability from spatial, logical and time dimensions (TCS-SLTD). J. Clean. Prod. 2015, 109, 62–75. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  11. Rockstrom, J.; Steffen, W.; Noone, K.; Persson, A.; Chapin, F.S., III; Lambin, E.F.; Lenton, T.M.; Scheffer, M.; Folke, C.; Schellnhuber, H.-J.; et al. A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 2009, 461, 472–475. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  12. Raworth, K. A Safe and Just Space for Humanity: Can We Live within the Doughnut? Oxfam GB: Oxford, UK, 2012; pp. 1–26. [Google Scholar]
  13. Dearing, J.A.; Wang, R.; Zhang, K.; Dyke, J.G.; Haberl, H.; Hossain, M.S.; Langdon, P.G.; Lenton, T.M.; Raworth, K.; Brown, S.; et al. Safe and just operating spaces for regional social-ecological systems. Glob. Environ. Chang. 2014, 28, 227–238. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
  14. Steffen, W.; Richardson, K.; Rockström, J.; Cornell, S.E.; Fetzer, I.; Bennett, E.M.; Biggs, R.; Carpenter, S.R.; Vries, W.D.; Wit, C.A.D.; et al. Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science 2015, 347, 1259855. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  15. Forman, R.T.T.; Wu, J. Where to put the next billion people. Nature 2016, 537, 608–611. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  16. Xing, Y.; Horner, R.M.W.; El-Haram, M.A.; Bebbington, J. A framework model for assessing sustainability impacts of urban development. Account. Forum 2009, 33, 209–224. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  17. Boyko, C.T.; Gaterell, M.R.; Barber, A.R.G.; Brown, J.; Bryson, J.R.; Butler, D.; Caputo, S.; Caserio, M.; Coles, R.; Cooper, R.; et al. Benchmarking sustainability in cities: The role of indicators and future scenarios. Glob. Environ. Chang. Part Hum. Policy Dimens. 2012, 22, 245–254. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  18. Zhou, N.; He, G.; Williams, C. China’s Development of Low-Carbon Eco-Cities and Associated Indicators Systems; Ernest Orlanda Lawrence & Berkeley National Laboratory: Berkeley, CA, USA, 2012. [Google Scholar]
  19. Ameen, R.F.M.; Mourshed, M.; Li, H. A critical review of environmental assessment tools for sustainable urban design. Environ. Impact Assess. Rev. 2015, 55, 110–125. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  20. Olalla-Tarraga, M.A. A conceptual framework to assess sustainability in urban ecological systems. Int. J. Sustain. Dev. World Ecol. 2006, 13, 1–15. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  21. Sumner, A. Measuring sustainable development in the era of globalisation: Can it be done and what way ahead? World Rev. Sci. Technol. Sustain. Dev. 2004, 1, 116–127. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  22. Davidson, K.M. Reporting systems for sustainability: What are they measuring? Soc. Indic. Res. 2011, 100, 351–365. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  23. Chesson, J. Sustainable development: Connecting practice with theory. J. Environ. Policy Manag. 2013, 15, 1350002-1–1350002-27. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  24. Ciegis, R.; Ramanauskiene, J.; Startiene, G. Theoretical reasoning of the use of indicators and indices for sustainable development assessment. Inzinerine Ekon.-Eng. Econ. 2009, 3, 33–40. [Google Scholar]
  25. Sala, S.; Ciuffo, B.; Nijkamp, P. A systematic framework for sustainability assessment. Ecol. Econ. 2015, 119, 314–325. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  26. Keirstead, J.; Leach, M. Bridging the gaps between theory and practice: A service niche approach to urban sustainability indicators. Sustain. Dev. 2008, 16, 329–340. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  27. Gonzalez, A.; Donnelly, A.; Jones, M. Community of practice approach to developing urban sustainability indicators. J. Environ. Assess. Policy Manag. 2011, 13, 591–617. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  28. Mulrow, C.D. The medical review article: State of the Science. Ann. Intern. Med. 1987, 106, 485–488. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  29. Velten, S.; Leventon, J.; Jager, N.; Newig, J. What is sustainable agriculture? A systematic review. Sustainability 2015, 7, 7833–7865. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  30. Yang, S.; Song, Y.; Tong, S. Sustainable retailing in the fashion industry: A systematic literature review. Sustainability 2017, 9, 1266. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  31. Moher, D.; Liberati, A.; Tetzlaff, J.; Altman, D.G.; The PRISMA Group. Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: The PRISMA statement. PLoS Med. 2009, 6, 1–6. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  32. Kates, R.W.; Clark, W.C.; Corell, R.; Hall, M.J.; Jaeger, C.C.; Lowe, I.; McCarthy, J.J.; Schellnhuber, H.-J.; Bolin, B.; Dickson, N.M.; et al. Sustainability science. Science 2001, 292, 641–642. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  33. Lamorgese, L.; Geneletti, D. Sustainability principles in strategic environmental assessment: A framework for analysis and examples from Italian urban planning. Environ. Impact Assess. Rev. 2013, 42, 116–126. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  34. Stuart, J.; Collins, P.; Alger, M.; Whitelaw, G. Embracing sustainability: The incorporation of sustainability principles in municipal planning and policy in four mid-sized municipalities in Ontario, Canada. Local Environ. 2016, 21, 219–240. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  35. Yigitcanlar, T.; Dur, F.; Dizdaroglu, D. Towards prosperous sustainable cities: A multiscalar urban sustainability assessment approach. Habitat Int. 2015, 45, 36–46. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  36. Schensul, J.J. Community, culture and sustainability in multilevel dynamic systems intervention science. Am. J. Community Psychol. 2009, 43, 241–256. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  37. Porio, E. Sustainable development goals and quality of life targets: Insights from Metro Manila. Curr. Sociol. Monogr. 2015, 63, 244–260. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  38. Atkinson, A.; Hatcher, L. The compass index of sustainability: Prototype for a comprehensive sustainability information system. J. Environ. Assess. Policy Manag. 2001, 3, 509–532. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  39. Blackwood, D.J.; Gilmour, D.J.; Isaacs, J.P.; Kurka, T.; Falconer, R.E. Sustainable urban development in practice: The SAVE concept. Environ. Plan. B 2014, 41, 885–906. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  40. Mori, K.; Yamashita, T. Methodological framework of sustainability assessment in city sustainability index (CSI): A concept of constraint and maximisation indicators. Habitat Int. 2015, 45, 10–14. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  41. Mori, K.; Fujii, T.; Yamashita, T.; Mimura, Y.; Uchiyama, Y.; Hayashi, K. Visualization of a City Sustainability Index (CSI): Towards transdisciplinary approaches involving multiple stakeholders. Sustainability 2015, 7, 12402–12424. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
  42. Abdullahi, S.; Pradhan, B.; Jebur, M.N. GIS-based sustainable city compactness assessment using integration of MCDM, Bayes theorem and RADAR technology. Geocarto Int. 2015, 30, 365–387. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  43. The Pearl Rating System for Estidama Community Rating System; Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council: Abu Dhabi, UAE, 2010.
  44. Alwaer, H.; Kirk, R.D. Matching a community assessment tool to the requirements of practice. Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng. Urban Des. Plan. 2015, 169, 216–229. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  45. Berardi, U. Sustainability assessment of urban communities through rating systems. Environ. Dev. Sustain. 2013, 15, 1573–1591. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  46. Bourdic, L.; Salat, S.; Nowacki, C. Assessing cities: A new system of cross-scale spatial indicators. Build. Res. Inf. 2012, 40, 592–605. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  47. Braulio-Gonzalo, M.; Dolores Bovea, M.; Jose Rua, M. Sustainability on the urban scale: Proposal of a structure of indicators for the Spanish context. Environ. Impact Assess. Rev. 2015, 53, 16–30. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  48. BREEAM Communities. BREEAM Communities Technical Manual; BREEAM Communities: Watford, UK, 2012; pp. 1–8. [Google Scholar]
  49. Browne, D.; O’Regan, B.; Moles, R. A comparative analysis of the application of sustainability metric tools using Tipperary Town, Ireland, as a case study. Manag. Environ. Qual. Int. J. 2005, 16, 37–54. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  50. Cappuyns, V. Inclusion of social indicators in decision support tools for the selection of sustainable site remediation options. J. Environ. Manag. 2016, 184, 1–12. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  51. Murakami, S.; Asami, M.Y.; Ikaga, T.; Ishida, H.; Inoue, K.; Iwamura, K. Environmental Performance Assessment Tool for Municipalities: Overview of CASBEE for Cities; Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency: Tokyo, Japan, 2013; pp. 1–3. [Google Scholar]
  52. De Oliveira Cavalcanti, C.; Limont, M.; Dziedzic, M.; Fernandes, V. Sustainability assessment methodology of urban mobility projects. Land Use Policy 2017, 60, 334–342. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  53. Da Cruz, N.F.; Marques, R.C. Scorecards for sustainable local governments. Cities 2014, 39, 165–170. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
  54. Dezelan, T.; Maksuti, A.; Ursic, M. Capacity of local development planning in Slovenia: Strengths and weaknesses of local sustainable development strategies. Lex Localis J. Local Self-Gov. 2014, 12, 547–573. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  55. Egilmez, G.; Gumus, S.; Kucukvar, M. Environmental sustainability benchmarking of the U.S. and Canada metropoles: An expert judgment-based multi-criteria decision making approach. Cities 2015, 42, 31–41. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  56. Elgert, L. The double edge of cutting edge: Explaining adoption and nonadoption of the STAR rating system and insights for sustainability indicators. Ecol. Indic. 2016, 67, 556–564. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  57. Estoque, R.C.; Murayama, Y. Measuring sustainability based upon various perspectives: A case study of a hill station in Southeast Asia. AMBIO 2014, 43, 943–956. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  58. Fitzgerald, B.G.; O’Doherty, T.; Moles, R.; O’Regan, B. A quantitative method for the evaluation of policies to enhance urban sustainability. Ecol. Indic. 2012, 18, 371–378. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  59. Gutowska, J.; Sleszynski, J.; Grodzinska-Jurczak, M. Selecting sustainability indicators for local community —Case study of Milanówek municipality, Poland. Probl. Sustain. Dev. 2012, 7, 77–86. [Google Scholar]
  60. He, J.; Bao, C.K.; Shu, T.F.; Yun, X.X.; Jiang, D.; Brwon, L. Framework for integration of urban planning, strategic environmental assessment and ecological planning for urban sustainability within the context of China. Environ. Impact Assess. Rev. 2011, 31, 549–560. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  61. Huang, S.-L.; Yeh, C.-T.; Budd, W.W.; Chen, L.-L. A sensitivity model (SM) approach to analyze urban development in Taiwan based on sustainability indicators. Environ. Impact Assess. Rev. 2009, 29, 116–125. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  62. Huang, C.-L.; Vause, J.; Ma, H.-W.; Yu, C.-P. Using material/substance flow analysis to support sustainable development assessment: A literature review and outlook. Resour. Conserv. Recycl. 2012, 68, 104–116. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  63. Huang, Q.; Zheng, X.; Hu, Y. Analysis of land-use emergy indicators based on urban metabolism: A case study for Beijing. Sustainability 2015, 7, 7473–7491. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  64. Huang, L.; Wu, J.; Yan, L. Defining and measuring urban sustainability: A review of indicators. Landsc. Ecol. 2015, 30, 1175–1193. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  65. Komeily, A.; Srinivasan, R.S. A need for balanced approach to neighborhood sustainability assessments: A critical review and analysis. Sustain. Cities Soc. 2015, 18, 32–43. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  66. Kropp, W.W.; Lein, J.K. Scenario analysis for urban sustainability assessment: A spatial multicriteria decision-analysis approach. Environ. Pract. 2013, 15, 133–146. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  67. Lavalle, C.; Demicheli, L.; Turchini, M.; Casals-Carrasco, P.; Niederhuber, M. Monitoring megacities: The MURBANDY/MOLAND approach. Dev. Pract. 2001, 11, 350–357. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  68. Lin, J.; Li, Y.; Wang, W.; Cui, S.; Wei, X. An eco-efficiency-based urban sustainability assessment method and its application. Int. J. Sustain. Dev. World Ecol. 2010, 17, 356–361. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  69. Masnavi, M.R. Measuring urban sustainability: Developing a conceptual framework for bridging the gap between theoretical levels and the operational levels. Int. J. Environ. Res. 2007, 1, 188–197. [Google Scholar]
  70. McGranahan, G.; Satterthwaite, D. Urban centers: An assessment of sustainability. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 2003, 28, 243–274. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  71. Michael, F.L.; Noor, Z.Z.; Figueroa, M.J. Review of urban sustainability indicators assessment—Case study between Asian countries. Habitat Int. 2014, 44, 491–500. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  72. Mitropoulos, L.K.; Prevedouros, P.D. Urban transportation vehicle sustainability assessment with a comparative study of weighted sum and fuzzy methods. J. Urban Plan. Dev. 2016, 142. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  73. Mörtberg, U.; Haas, J.; Zetterberg, A.; Franklin, J.P.; Jonsson, D.; Deal, B. Urban ecosystems and sustainable urban development-analysing and assessing interacting systems in the Stockholm region. Urban Ecosyst. 2013, 16, 763–782. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  74. Mori, K.; Christodoulou, A. Review of sustainability indices and indicators: Towards a new city sustainability index (CSI). Environ. Impact Assess. Rev. 2012, 32, 94–106. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  75. Munier, N. Methodology to select a set of urban sustainability indicators to measure the state of the city, and performance assessment. Ecol. Indic. 2011, 11, 1020–1026. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  76. Reith, A.; Orova, M. Do green neighbourhood ratings cover sustainability? Ecol. Indic. 2015, 48, 660–672. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  77. Ries, M.; Trotz, M.; Vairavamoorthy, K. Fit-for-purpose sustainability index: A simplified approach for U.S. water utility sustainability assessment. Water Pract. Technol. 2016, 11, 35–47. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  78. Schetke, S.; Haase, D.; Kötter, T. Towards sustainable settlement growth: A new multi-criteria assessment for implementing environmental targets into strategic urban planning. Environ. Impact Assess. Rev. 2012, 32, 195–210. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  79. Sciopini, A.; Mazzi, A.; Zuliani, F.; Mason, M. The ISO 14031 standard to guide the urban sustainability measurement process: An Italian experience. J. Clean. Prod. 2007, 16, 1247–1257. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  80. Sharifi, A.; Murayama, A. A critical review of seven selected neighborhood sustainability assessment tools. Environ. Impact Assess. Rev. 2013, 38, 73–87. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  81. Sharifi, A.; Murayama, A. Viability of using global standards for neighborhood sustainability assessment: Insights from a comparative case study. J. Environ. Plan. Manag. 2015, 58, 1–23. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  82. Shen, L.; Ochoa, J.J.; Shah, M.N.; Zhang, X. The application of urban sustainability indicators - a comparison between various practices. Habitat Int. 2011, 35, 17–29. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  83. STAR Community Rating System Version 2; STAR Communities: Washington, DC, USA, 2016; pp. 1–141.
  84. Sun, L.; Ni, J.; Borthwick, A.G.L. Rapid assessment of sustainability in mainland China. J. Environ. Manag. 2010, 91, 1021–1031. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  85. Tran, L. An interactive method to select a set of sustainable urban development indicators. Ecol. Indic. 2016, 61, 418–427. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  86. U.S. Green Building Council. LEED v 4 for Neighborhood Development; U.S. Green Building Council: Washington, DC, USA, 2016; pp. 1–161. [Google Scholar]
  87. Van Dijk, M.P.; Mingshun, Z. Sustainability indices as a tool for urban managers, evidence from four medium-sized Chinese cities. Environ. Impact Assess. Rev. 2005, 25, 667–688. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  88. Venkatesh, G.; Brattebo, H.; Saegrov, S.; Behzadian, K.; Kapelan, Z. Metabolism-modelling approaches to long-term sustainability assessment of urban water services. Urban Water J. 2016, 14, 11–22. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  89. Verovsek, S.; Juvancic, M.; Zupancic, T. Recognizing and fostering local spatial identities using a sustainability assessment framework. Ann. Anali Za Istrske Mediter. Stud. Ser. Hist. Sociol. 2016, 26, 573–584. [Google Scholar]
  90. Wangel, J.; Wallhagen, M.; Malmqvist, T.; Finnveden, G. Certification systems for sustainable neighbourhoods: What do they really certify? Environ. Impact Assess. Rev. 2016, 56, 200–213. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  91. Wei, Y.; Huang, C.; Lam, P.T.I.; Sha, Y.; Feng, Y. Using urban-carrying capacity as a benchmark for sustainable urban development: an empirical study of Beijing. Sustainability 2015, 7, 3244–3268. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  92. Yin, K.; Wang, R.; An, Q.; Yao, L.; Liang, J. Using eco-efficiency as an indicator for sustainable urban development: A case study of Chinese provincial capital cities. Ecol. Indic. 2014, 36, 665–671. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  93. Yoon, J.; Park, J. Comparative analysis of material criteria in neighborhood sustainability assessment tools and urban design guidelines: Cases of the UK, the US, Japan, and Korea. Sustainability 2015, 7, 14450–14487. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  94. Zanella, A.; Camanho, A.S.; Dias, T.G. The assessment of cities’ livability integrating human wellbeing and environmental impact. Ann. Oper. Res. 2015, 226, 695–726. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  95. Cohen, M.; Wiek, A.; Kay, B.; Harlow, J. Aligning public participation to stakeholders’ sustainability literacy—A case study on sustainable urban development in Phoenix, Arizona. Sustainability 2015, 7, 8709–8728. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  96. Robinson, J. Squaring the circle? Some thoughts on the idea of sustainable development. Ecol. Econ. 2004, 48, 369–384. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  97. Redclift, M. An oxymoron comes of age. Sustain. Dev. 2005, 13, 212–227. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  98. Collins, J.C.; Porras, J.I. Building your company’s vision. Harv. Bus. Rev. 1996, September–October, 65–77. [Google Scholar]
  99. Nevens, F.; Dessein, J.; Meul, M.; Rogge, E.; Verbruggen, I.; Mulier, A.; Van Passel, S.; Lepoutre, J.; Hongenaert, M. ‘On tomorrow’s grounds’, Flemish agriculture in 2030: A case of participatory translation of sustainability principles into a vision for the future. J. Clean. Prod. 2008, 16, 1062–1070. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  100. Miller, T.R.; Wiek, A.; Sarewitz, D.; Robinson, J.; Olsson, L.; Kriebel, D.; Loorbach, D. The future of sustainability science: A solutions-oriented research agenda. Sustain. Sci. 2014, 9, 239–246. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  101. Reed, M.S.; Fraser, E.D.G.; Dougill, A.J. An adaptive learning process for developing and applying sustainability indicators with local communities. Ecol. Econ. 2006, 59, 406–418. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
Figure 1. PRISMA Flow diagram of literature search and review.
Figure 1. PRISMA Flow diagram of literature search and review.
Sustainability 09 02048 g001
Table 1. Included literature for the systematic review (n = 69).
Table 1. Included literature for the systematic review (n = 69).
Source TopicSpatial ScaleLocations
01Abdullahi et al. [42]Compact urban formUrban zones to cityKajang, Malaysia
02Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council [43]Pearl Rating System for EstidamaNeighborhoodAbu Dhabi, UAE
03Al Waer and Kirk [44]Community sustainability assessment NeighborhoodUnited Kingdom
04Ameen et al. [19]Urban design and urban developmentDevelopment project to cityNot spatially explicit
05Atkisson and Hatcher [38]Sustainability indicators indexCity to countyOrlando, United States
06Berardi [45]Multi-criteria rating systems for urban communitiesNeighborhoodNot spatially explicit
07Blackwood et al. [39]Urban sustainability assessment; SAVE frameworkDevelopment projectDundee, Scotland
08Bourdic et al. [46]Urban formMultiple urban scales Not spatially explicit
09Boyko et al. [17]Urban regeneration and future scenariosMultiple urban scalesUnited Kingdom
10Braulio-Gonzalo et al. [47]Urban sustainability assessment toolsNeighborhood and cityA Mediterranean city, Spain
11BREEAM [48]BREEAM CommunitiesModerate and large development projectsUnited Kingdom
12Browne et al. [49]Sustainability metric toolsTownTipperary Town, Ireland
13Cappuyns [50]Social indicators for decision support toolsSiteUnited Kingdom
14Murakami et al. [51]CASBEECityJapan
15Cavalcanti et al. [52]Urban mobility projectsMetropolitan regionCuritiba, Brazil
16Chesson [23]Asset-based framework for sustainability assessmentNot scale or sector specificNot spatially explicit
17Ciegis [24]Generic sustainability indicators and principlesNot scale or sector specificNot spatially explicit
18Cruz and Marques [53]Municipal scorecardCityLisbon, Portugal
19Davidson et al. [9]Social democratic approachMultiple urban scalesAustralia
20Dezelan et al. [54]Assessment of local strategic planning mechanismsSmall municipality to city4 municipalities in Slovenia
21Ding et al. [10]Multi-dimensional framework for sustainability assessmentCityXi'an, China
22Egilmez et al. [55]Fuzzy Multi Criteria Decision MakingMetropolitan region27 metropoles in US and Canada
23Elgert [56]STAR CommunitiesCityNorth America
24Estoque and Murayama [57]Urban sustainability assessmentTown to cityBaguio City, the Philippines
25Fitzgerald et al. [58]Sustainability Evaluation Metric for Policy Recommendations (SEMPRe)Small to medium urban settlement79 urban settlements, Ireland
26Gibson [6]Generic criteria for sustainability assessmentsNot scale or sector specificNot spatially explicit
27Gonzalez et al. [27]Urban metabolism and decision support systemsCity5 cities across Europe
28Gutowska et al. [59]Sustainability indicator selection at the local levelCommunityMilanowek, Poland
29He et al. [60]SEA and urban planningUrban districtChangzhou City, China
30Huang et al. [61]Sustainability indicatorsCity to urban regionUrban Taiwan
31Huang et al. [62]Material/substance flow analysis as SD assessmentNot scale or sector specificNot spatially explicit
32Huang et al. [63]Urban metabolismCityBeijing, China
33Huang et al. [64]Sustainability indicators and indicesCity to landscapeNot spatially explicit
34Komeily and Srinivasan [65]Neighborhood sustainability assessment toolsDevelopment project to cityNot spatially explicit
35Kropp and Lein [66]Multicriteria decision analysisCityWorcester, MA, USA
36Lamorgese and Geneletti [33]SEA City15 cities in Italy
37Lavalle et al. [67]Urban land use changeMegacity5 Central and Eastern European cities; 7 non-European megacities
38Lin et al. [68]Urban eco-efficiency; environmental footprintCityXiamen, China
39Masnavi [69]Sustainability indicatorsCityNot spatially explicit
40McGranahan and Satterthwaite [70]Sustainable development in citiesCity to regionNot spatially explicit
41Michael et al. [71]Urban sustainability indicatorsCityCities in Malaysia, China, and Taiwan
42Mitropoulos and Prevedouros [72]Sustainability assessment of urban transportationUrban corridorHonolulu, United States
43Mörtberg et al. [73]LEAM (Landuse Evoluation and impact Assessment Model)Metropolitan regionStockholm, Sweden
44Mori and Christodoulou [74]City sustainability indexCityNot spatially explicit
45Mori and Yamashita [40]City sustainability indexCityNot spatially explicit
46Munier [75]Linear programming for selecting indicatorsCityNorth American city
47Olalla-Tarraga [20]Combination frameworks for SA of urban ecological systemsCityNot spatially explicit
48Porio [37]Quality of life frameworksMetropolitan regionManila, Philippines
49Reith and Orova [76]Green neighborhood ratingsNeighborhoodNot spatially explicit
50Ries et al. [77]Water utility assessmentCity water utilityUnited States urban water utilities
51Schetke et al. [78]MCA and decision support system for infill and greenfield developmentDevelopment sitesEssen, Germany
52Sciopini et al. [79]ISO 14031 standardCityPadua, Italy
53Sharifi and Murayama [80]Neighborhood Sustainability Assessment ToolsNeighborhoodNot spatially explicit
54Sharifi and Murayama [81]Neighborhood Sustainability Assessment ToolsNeighborhoodPortland, United States; Salford, England; Koshigaya, Japan
55Shen et al. [82]International Urban Sustainability Indicators ListCity9 large cities around the world
56STAR Community Rating System [83]STAR Community Rating SystemCityNot spatially explicit
57Stuart et al. [34]Sustainability principlesCity4 municipalities in Ontario, Canada
58Sun et al. [84]Sustainable development indexCity to region27 provinces and 4 municipalities in China
59Tran [85]Sustainable urban development indicatorsCityDurham, North Carolina, United States
60USGBC [86]LEED-ND v4NeighborhoodNorth America
61van Djik and Mingshun [87]Sustainability indicesCity4 medium cities in China
62Venkatesh et al. [88]Metabolism modelling for urban water servicesCity water utilityOslo, Norway
63Versovsek et al. [89]Local spatial identitiesNeighborhood6 neighborhoods, Slovenia
64Wangel et al. [90]Sustainable neighborhood rating systemsNeighborhoodNot spatially explicit
65Wei et al. [91]Urban carrying capacityCityBeijing, China
66Yigitcanlar et al. [35]Multi-scalar urban sustainability assessmentNeighborhood to regionGold Coast City, Australia
67Yin et al. [92]Eco-efficiencyCity30 provincial capitals, China
68Yoon and Park [93]Sustainable material assessmentNeighborhood to cityNew York, London, Seoul, Tokyo
69Zanella et al. [94]City livabilityCity34 European cities
Table 2. Urban sustainability assessment methods from the literature.
Table 2. Urban sustainability assessment methods from the literature.
Method Number of Instances in the Literature
Indicator or index-oriented frameworks25
Sustainability rating systems16
Principle-based frameworks6
Spatial analysis and urban form6
Multi-criteria decision making5
Urban metabolism5
Eco-efficiency assessment2
Impact assessment2
Asset-based framework1
Urban carrying capacity1
Table 3. Sustainability principles in the literature.
Table 3. Sustainability principles in the literature.
PrincipleNumber of Instances in the Literature
Socio-ecological system integrity6
Livelihood sufficiency and opportunity3
Intragenerational equity5
Intergenerational equity4
Resource maintenance and efficiency5
Precaution and adaptation3
Immediate and long-term integration4
Socio-ecological civility and democratic governance2
Adapted from: Gibson [6]
Table 4. Sustainability ‘dimensions’ identified in the literature.
Table 4. Sustainability ‘dimensions’ identified in the literature.
DimensionNumber of Instances in the Literature
Environmental26
Social26
Economic22
Integrative17
Institutional7
Material3
Urban form2
Cultural1
Energy1
Technological1
Table 5. Urban sustainability categories in the literature.
Table 5. Urban sustainability categories in the literature.
CategoryTotal Number of Instances in the LiteratureNumber of Unique Elements in the LiteratureNumber of Sources Referencing
Air Quality19216
Arts, Culture and Recreation401522
Buildings491918
Built Environment30917
Climate Change18314
Community22915
Economy1044140
Education16612
Energy451233
Equity732830
Food Systems14811
Governance1243234
Growth and development858
Housing29920
Infrastructure291116
Land Use841336
Management16710
Manufacturing646
Material Use331522
Mobility and transportation761932
Natural Environment992949
Natural Resources411827
Pollution15410
Public Health321416
Quality of Life23916
Safety421220
Technology15413
Waste321223
Water641929

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Cohen, M. A Systematic Review of Urban Sustainability Assessment Literature. Sustainability 2017, 9, 2048. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9112048

AMA Style

Cohen M. A Systematic Review of Urban Sustainability Assessment Literature. Sustainability. 2017; 9(11):2048. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9112048

Chicago/Turabian Style

Cohen, Matthew. 2017. "A Systematic Review of Urban Sustainability Assessment Literature" Sustainability 9, no. 11: 2048. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9112048

Note that from the first issue of 2016, this journal uses article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

Article Metrics

Back to TopTop