Assessing urban sustainability: a proposal for indicators, metrics and scoring—a case study in Colombia

Abstract

Although there are different methodologies for evaluating the sustainability of urban areas in Latin America, they usually apply to a specific city as a whole and cannot be generalized to other cities; besides, they do not address smaller urban units, such as the district, and rarely approach all sustainability dimensions. This study aims to propose a methodology for the evaluation of urban sustainability in the context of a country, whose approach can be adapted to evaluate the urban sustainability of any country or territory, taking into account environmental, social, economic and institutional aspects. The methodology is structured as an ordered protocol in five stages: (I) revision of PROGRAMMES on urban sustainability, (II) revision and cluster of indicators, (III) definition of indicators and metrics, (IV) definition of the scoring method of indicators, and (V) graphical representation of indicators. Accordingly, the methodology was applied in the context of Colombia, particularly to the medium-sized city of Mosquera, as a case study, and both as a whole and by socio-economic strata. As a result, a set of indicators with their corresponding metrics and score in sustainability levels was obtained, as well as a graphical representation that facilitates the interpretation of results and enables the comparison of different urban areas within the city. The results made it possible to identify vulnerable or degraded urban areas, and on a lower level, to detect specific critical aspects that require the implementation of improvements geared towards a more sustainable urban environment. The overall conclusion is that there is room for improvement in the municipality, since its level of sustainability ranges, generally, from 1 to 2 on a scale of 3.