Review of indicators for the definition of sustainable cities. Action criteria

Resumen

The expansion of urban built environments in cities continues to grow. Despite occupying about 2% of the earth’s surface, they consume between 60% and 80% of the world´s energy. It is estimated that, by 2030, approximately 60% of the population will live in urban areas and that, by 2050, this percentage will have increased to 70%. This situation presents us with greater challenges related to a high demand for resources and a significant environmental footprint, but also scenarios of opportunities for sustainable urban development. One of the ways to measure the generated impacts of urbanization and to evaluate the policies and strategies that each locality implements to achieve sustainability is through the application of a set of indicators. Although, these indicators have generally been addressed through frameworks at the national scale, very little is known from the urban scale. Some global frameworks have recently been developed that should be applied to the city scale, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG-11, the New Urban Agenda (NAU), and the standard ISO 37120. The definition of sustainable cities is not a simple process. Consequently, this research proposes a review of these global frameworks, the international standard and some case studies available in the scientific literature to identify their advantages and limitations, as well as the challenges of their application. The main objective is to determine a set of criteria, based on a comparison analysis between these resources, which can contribute to an appropriate definition of indicators at the city scale and support urban planning. As a result, 10 criteria are obtained that address aspects related to the capacity of indicators to be disaggregated, spatial disaggregation, the assessment of policies and their outcomes, comparability, and standardization, among others. These criteria are expected to help guide the selection of indicators to overcome current challenges. In this way, the indicators can become more useful tools for improving people´s quality of life and maintaining a balance with the environment.