A sustainable metropolis: Perspectives of population, productivity and parity

Abstract

Research on countries' sustainable development has called for more complete assessments of sustainability. Indeed, integrated studies coupling human and natural systems reveal new and complex patterns and processes not evident when studied in isolation. In line with the need to construct an index that takes into account a more holistic notion of sustainability, this study investigates the overall sustainable development of a metropolis through three dimensions, population, productivity and parity, and takes Singapore as a case study. We incorporate these three dimensions in our construction of a total sustainability index. We find that the population dimension has remained relatively unchanged, while the productivity dimension has gradually moved towards sustainability. The parity dimension has moved towards sustainability before 2002, but it shows ups and downs until 2012 when an upward trend toward sustainability appeared again. Results from this study imply that the government should pay attention to controlling the size of the population of temporary residents, and increasing the government budget for the environment.