- Towards a Design of Sustainable Cities: Incorporating sustainability indicators in urban planning    231 kb by    Rosales, Natalie | natalie_rp2000@yahoo.com.mx    Short Outline This work offers an innovative methodological approach which creates an operative relationship among sustainability indicators and urban planning to implement sustainable development at the city level. Abstract Over the past decades incorporation and integration of the urban dimension has gained importance within the sustainable development paradigm. Because of that most authors have recognized how the majority of environmental threats have been exacerbated by the activity, density and consumption patterns of urban life. Therefore there is an increasing recognition of the need to build sustainable cities in order to achieve sustainable development. As part of this literature review some authors have proposed the creation of instruments to evaluate and the trends of urban dynamics. Nevertheless, these efforts have been mostly oriented to design sets of indicators focused as ex-post urban planning evaluating tools. In this sense, this paper represents a contribution to urban planning approaches as it incorporates a set of indicators to be used throughout the urban planning process including sustainability as a parameter since the beginning. This set, is integrated by functioning, input, output, process and perception indicators that are related to data which is conventionally used in urban planning which includes: master plans, zoning regulations and building codes, together with the attributes of sustainability that will allow cities to move towards sustainable development. Therefore this paper will provide urban planners with an urban development scenario in which a sustainable strategy is embraced as part of the decision making process. This work also offers an innovative methodological approach that will be part of a new understanding of the city that integrates its interaction with the environment, to which the city belongs , and that is recognized at the same time as a provider of human habitat. The research incorporated in this paper sheds a light on a thriving area in urban planning that will definitely will set the ground for future developments in the field a as the territorial dimension of sustainability will become increasingly relevant for all, societies and policy makers Keywords urban planning, sustainable indicators Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2010: Sustainable City - Developing World   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper