A comparison of sustainable urban development indicators between major cities in China

Abstract

Application of sustainable urban development indicators is one of the most important strategies to achieve the mission sustainable development. Appropriateness of the indicators is therefore essential to the successful achievement of the mission. Particularly, those developing countries such as China where there are huge plans of future urbanization need effective indicators to guide the practice of their urbanization plans. Previous studies have presented various sustainable urban development indicators and the methods for establishing these indicators. This paper presents a comparison of sustainable urban development indicators between 30 provincial capitals in China. There are clear differences between different cities in the perspective of choosing indicators. The results demonstrate the relationship between the choice of key indicators and the type of cities. The research findings provide valuable references for studying effective indicators in guiding the practice of urbanization towards sustainable development mission with considering special characteristics of a specific city. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014.