Defining Indicator Systems for Liveable Cities

Abstract

Processes of urbanization and trends of densification and enlargement of cities are very often accompanied by economic re-structuring, social polarization and increasing environmental problems. As a consequence, cities have to cope with growing challenges of sustainable development, and Climate Change is causing new forms of menaces through extreme weather events. Both intraurban trends and Climate Change impacts increasingly threaten the liveability of cities and metropolises. There are two opposite approaches which both aim at influencing and steering urban development in a strategic way: First, Smart City policy is targeted at implementing new technologies for a more efficient management of sustainable urban development. Secondly, the Resilient City policy aims at mitigating the negative effects of external crises by reducing urban vulnerabilities and strengthening adaptability and transformability in potentially affected urban areas. Evidently, these two policy concepts support urban transformation processes from different perspectives, but they both pursue a place-based approach for steering urban development processes in a sustainable way. Both policies try to influence the liveability of cities in various fields of action by implementing projects and interventions. Hence, liveability can be regarded as the outcome of two different place-based policies, which consider urban performances in a multidimensional way. In this context, this paper discusses briefly the socio-economic, environmental, technological and governing components based on Smart City and Resilience literature and suggests groups of potential factors, which are supposed to be more or less important for urban liveability. These factors are characterized by relevant dimensions reflecting a city’s recent performance and activities in its path of transformation and representing existing conditions and resources for future transformative strategic projects. In order to give an idea of relevant indicators and to make the concept more precise, adequate types of indicators are introduced. Considering selected indicator systems, two methodologies are introduced for the implementation of the indicator concept: the first approach is based on the concept of benchmarking cities by a comparative analysis of values. The second way follows the idea of monitoring a city’s development over time from a path perspective, which allows to show specific changes and trends. Both approaches, however, clearly follow place-based concepts, which are able to provide empirical evidence on the livability of cities on the base of local and regional data. In that way, they are both suited to provide an evidence-based contribution to public discussion and to be practically applied in strategic urban development planning. A final discussion of both methodologies suggests recommendations not only for practical implementation but also for future research.