Evaluating and Quantifying Sustainable Development in Urban Neighborhoods

Sustainable Development (SD) has become a major priority in the public and private sectors in recent years in order to maintain social quality of life and support economic development while preserving the environment. In order to support SD in urban areas, local governments adopt various strategies such as land use planning that require the quantification of SD performance to ensure the success of such these strategies. Although several proposed a number of indicators for evaluating SD in urban areas, there is still a need for a set of metrics and a model for decision makers to make a robust quantification of SD. The main objectives of this study are to develop: (1) a set of metrics and a quantitative model for evaluating SD in urban neighborhoods efficiently; and (2) a prototype decision support tool to facilitate the application of the developed model by decision-makers. An application example is analyzed to illustrate the capabilities of the developed model and decision support tool in quantifying SD performances in urban neighborhoods.