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Habitat International 45 (2015) 1e2

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Habitat International

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Editorial

Measuring the prosperity of cities

Introduction

The objective of this Special Edition of Habitat International is to advance a dialog that will promote the development of a more robust and useful measure of the prosperity of cities. The discussion began with the publication of the State of World's Cities 2012/13: Prosperity of Cities report by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (2013). In that report UN-Habitat introduced a City Prosperity Index based on a multi-dimensional definition of pros- perity. Rather than measuring prosperity solely by traditional eco- nomic measures such as productivity and income, the proposed CPI would also include measures of Infrastructure, Equity, Sustainabil- ity and Quality of Life. Along with Productivity, these dimensions could be represented as spokes of a wheel. The hub of the wheel consists of the laws, institutions and urban planning practices that are necessary to maintain the balance across the different dimensions.

Each of the dimensions of this definition of Prosperity contrib- utes to an enriched understanding of the concept. An economically rich (highly productive) city must operate sustainably or it will self- destruct. Even the wealthiest city is not truly prosperous unless there is an equitable distribution of the material prosperity, or if certain groups do not have access to the available services and amenities.

The analogy of a wheel is particularly apt. The hub of the wheel (governance, regulation, planning) is essential to hold the individ- ual measures in place. Even though the metrics of the individual di- mensions are quite different, they must each attain a comparable level of performance for the wheel to role smoothly. By measuring each spoke separately, it is possible to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the community and which aspects require attention.

The current version of the CPI should perhaps be considered a “rough draft,” providing a starting point for improvements and re- finements. The State of World Cities report offers a framework for the CPI that has considerable potential. To move the CPI concept forward, a number of critical questions must be considered and resolved. Most of these concerns relate to the primary “spokes” and the elements that make up each spoke as well.

What are the key aspects of prosperity that should be incorpo- rated in the CPI? Are the current five appropriate? Should others be included?

What are the appropriate metrics for each of the dimensions? Are there global standards or do some components require local- ized definitions?

Should the different components be assigned different weights or is the present scheme of equal weights for each of the spokes appropriate? Should the sub-components that have objective tar- gets (for example 100% of dwellings connected to reliable electric

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2014.06.016 0197-3975/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

service) be considered differently than measures that are more nebulous (road congestion or government corruption)?

Expert group analyses

In May, 2013, the City Prosperity Index Directorate of United Na- tions Habitat convened ameeting of experts from around the world to provide advice and comment on the City Prosperity Index. The papers that are included in this volume were originally prepared for this expert group meeting. As will be evident in reading these papers, the expert group was not asked to directly provide an eval- uation of the CPI. Rather, the scholars were asked to prepare a brief paper on a topic relevant to a particular aspect of the CPI. The aim was to introduce a broader perspective to the CPI development ef- forts, not to provide a critique of the current version of the CPI.

The second and third papers in this Special Issue of Habitat In- ternational deal with the requirements for the conceptual and empirical development of an evaluative urban index. Wong's paper deals more directly with the current version of the CPI and seeks to identify the elements that require further analysis and evaluation. The Mori and Yamashita paper focuses on the more conceptual el- ements of a City Sustainability Index. This paper describes two different types of indicators, constraints and maximization ele- ments, as well as introducing a framework for the logical compar- ison of the relative sustainability of different cities.

The paper by Sands then develops an index of economic pros- perity and applies it to mid-size Canadian metropolitan areas. The current CPI, which uses the City Development Index to assess productivity, provides a much richer understanding of this tradi- tional measure of prosperity. Nevertheless, this paper does suggest that a meaningful and useful measure of economic prosperity might be constructed from fewer variables than at present; such a strategy might make it easier to expand the range of the CPI to more cities.

Jones et al. describe the development of a framework, the Local- ized Sustainability Score (LSS), for screening urban transport pro- jects. The framework assesses the relative importance of various locally applicable sustainability criteria and maps the ability of candidate urban transport projects to positively impact them. The LSS framework can used to rank and priorities urban transport pro- jects as part of a stakeholder-driven decision-making process.

Silva's paper also addresses methodological issues, in this instance the design of a weighted measure of air quality and noise pollution. Employing local or national standards to establish the unacceptable levels of specific pollutants from a human health perspective, the individual indicators are combined as a single in- dex value. Although Silva assigns equal weight to each indicator, the methodology could also incorporate different weights.

Editorial / Habitat International 45 (2015) 1e22

In the paper by Yigicanlar et al., a multiscalar urban sustainabil- ity approach is used to link two sustainability assessment models that evaluate sustainability at micro- and mezzo-levels and generate multiscalar results for the macro-level. The paper also describes how the development of a sustainability index that accurately reflects multiscalar indicator data may contribute to improving UN-Habitat's City Prosperity Index.

The next two papers deal with efforts to develop a better mea- sure of Quality of Life. Marans' paper is primarily conceptual, while Bonaiuto et al. report on en empirical study of Quality of Life mea- surements. Both papers suggest that survey data of citizen attitudes should be incorporated into Quality of Life indices and, indeed, that such qualitative data may complement and, in some instances, sub- stitute for quantitative measures.

Finally, Steed considers the question of how the quality of gover- nance can influence measure of city prosperity. While he finds some positive associations between prosperity and governance at the sub-state level, the correspondence between the two is far from perfect. The complexities in measuring, let alone changing, some measures of governance quality (transparency, absence of corruption) add to the difficulties of creating a simple measure of governance quality.

Future directions

The papers included in this Special Issue suggest some of the complexities inherent in the further development of a practical and reliable City Prosperity Index. Several of the papers describe new or different measures that could be incorporated in the CPI to improve it. For each of these, as well as for many other indicators and scales, the primary question to be answered is whether the benefit of the improvement is worth the cost required to imple- ment it on a global basis. There were more than 560 urban agglom- erations with a population of at least 750,000 in 2009; one quarter of them in China (UN-HABITAT, 2013).Would the cost of developing

the CPI for every one of them be justified by the improvement in the quality of the results?

In the short run, there are a number of choices that will need to be made. The current version of the CPI is a useful starting place. It provides a model that can be used to test the utility and potential applications of the broader concept of prosperity. It provides a nuanced summation of important elements of prosperity.

Howwill the CPI be used? Its primary function could be to allow comparisons to be made among cities at a single point in time. Or, its primary function could be to allow an individual city to measure its progress over time. The first option requires the collection of equivalent data for all of the cities in the data set at close to the same time. The second formulation requires the identification of data that are consistently collected at comparable intervals that correspond to the time period being considered. If some elements of the index are available on a daily, or even hourly basis (say air quality), how can these be blended with metrics that are available only annually, or even less frequently? If only some of the compo- nents can be updated annually, is it reasonable to publish annual results for the CPI?

Reference

United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT). (2013). State of the world's cities 2012/2013: Prosperity of cities. Nairobi, Kenya: UN-HABITAT.

Gary Sands, Guest Editor, Professor Emeritus*

Urban Planning Program, Wayne State University, 1051 Hartsough St., Plymouth, MI 48170, USA

* Tel.: þ1 734 255 5997. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected].

Available online 28 July 2014