Abstract

     Most sustainability assessment systems focus on comparing the sustainable progress across cities, and few concentrate on tracking the sustainability progress of cities over time with the consideration of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Tracking the sustainable progress of cities over time can help unveil the potential obstacles and challenges in city governance and provide references for city policy-makers. Hence, the present study built up a framework to evaluate sustainable development progress in Shenzhen from 2005 to 2019. Shenzhen is a young megacity with only 40 years of history, and it is one of the demonstration zones to represent sustainable development in China. Fifty indicators in the dimensions of innovation vitality, public service, and living environments are chosen to consider the focus of both UN SDGs goals and Shenzhen’s sustainable development plans. The potential bottlenecks for city development are identified, and effective policies implemented by Shenzhen policy-makers are highlighted. Results showed that the innovation vitality in Shenzhen had improved continuously since 2005, but public service and living environments both showed a falling trend after a peak in 2014 and 2016. The result revealed that as a megacity, Shenzhen should pay more attention to public service and living environments, especially in the construction of schools at all levels, salvation management centers, and green space, and improve air quality to meet the requirement of higher rank in sustainable urban development. It is suggested that cities build a solid system to monitor their progress towards achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The experience from Shenzhen can be adapted and implemented by other young megacities worldwide to accelerate their path towards sustainability.

Introduction

     The concept of sustainable development was first mentioned in the United Nations report named “Our Common Future” in 1987, which defined sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” (Brundtland et al., 1987). Various economic development modes, strategies, and policies worldwide were then developed by considering economic, social, and environmental factors simultaneously, so-called in a sustainable way (Wu, 2013; Jepson, 2004; Moe et al., 2006; Strong, 2006). In 2015, the United Nations announced the report “Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” (The, 2030 Agenda), which put forward 17 global sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030, which lead the path towards sustainable development to the new page (UN, 2015b).

Conclusion

     The research focused on evaluating sustainable development progress in the megacity Shenzhen from 2005 to 2019 by constructing an index system covering three dimensions of innovation vitality, public service, and living environment with 15 s-level and 50 tertiary indicators. According to the assessment, overall sustainable development in Shenzhen was much better in recent years. The growth rate of sustainable development score was rapid before 2013 but slower afterward. In terms of the three dimensions of Shenzhen’s sustainable development, innovation vitality kept improving since 2005. Public service improved before 2014 but regressed after that. The living environment improved before 2016 but showed a falling trend afterward. The evaluation indicates that Shenzhen paid great attention to the construction of innovation vitality.

      In terms of future development, it is suggested that the local government build a more solid sustainable assessment system with indicators covering all 17 SDGs to monitor the progress to sustainability. Shenzhen could accelerate the construction of higher education institutions and research institutes by cooperating with top universities and financial and policy support for sustainable urban development. The burden of innovation investment may be relieved by training programs or networking organized by the government. The obstacle of public services is suggested to be taken seriously and could be reduced by urban renewal. The living environment is one of the strengths of sustainable development in Shenzhen and could be maintained by constructing a resource-saving society.

1- Introduction

2- Literature review

3- Materials & methods

4- Results

5- Discussion

6- Conclusion

References

Abstract

The adoption rate for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) projects has varied considerably across the United States. Local governments and developers face variation in the incentives and barriers while implementing LEED-ND projects across four key dimensions – economic, policy, public awareness, and organizational. This paper investigated the drivers of variation using a mixed-methods approach including a two-stage Heckman model, a survey of Texas subdivision developers and interviews with local planning officials. Results indicate that initial public funding may lead to more LEED-ND projects being completed, but with a diminishing return as these projects become established within the region. Support for local programs including tax abatement, public-private partnerships, and other incentives were also demonstrated to help facilitate LEED-ND project adoption. Overall this paper underscored the important role, especially early on, the public sector and local governments play in initiating local LEED-ND projects to inform and motivate the land development industry.

Introduction

As the U.S. and larger world population trends towards living in more urbanized cities and neighborhoods, reduced environmental quality, urban sprawl, and social segregation have become increasingly salient challenges for planning and design professionals (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, & Medicine, 2016). The intersection of prioritizing environmental considerations in land-use decisions within the United States began in the late 1960s after the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act and took shape globally within the UN’s Our Common Future Report in 1984 (UN, 1984). Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit’s Agenda 21 in 1992 (Lafferty and Eckerberg, 2013) stimulated local sustainability actions, leading to the expansion of planning movements such as New Urbanism and Smart Growth (Smith, 2015; Wheeler, 2013; Luederitz et al., 2013) and the development of sustainability assessment tools from individual buildings to whole neighborhoods in scale (Retzlaff, 2009; Berardi, 2012). One of the major assessment tools to emerge was the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System that the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) established in 2000 (Shutters and Tufts, 2016). LEED has provided a comprehensive set of guidelines and qualifications to recognize green building projects that take additional steps of source-reduction, energyefficiency, and sustainable design in their construction (USGBC, 2017). In 2009, LEED launched an additional program for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) that looked beyond the impact of individual buildings to consider the sustainability of entire communities in their development (USGBC, 2014). The LEED-ND framework asks developers to incorporate important site selection-based considerations in the planning process such as the walkability and compactness of the neighborhood, its proximity to possible transit options, as well as its development impact on surrounding wetlands, wildlife, and agricultural uses. The LEED-ND framework, when compared to other neighborhood-scale certifications, also provides stronger emphasis on the resources, environment and location of site selection. (Sharifi and Murayama, 2015). Within the growth and sustainable development practices that LEED-ND projects aim to implement, there remains widespread variation in which areas of the country have more robustly pursued and completed such projects (see Fig. 1).

Abstract

Strategic management of the city should take into account questions related to improving the environment and quality of life. For environmental improvements in Kazan city (Russia) used elements of strategic and tactical management with the introduction of «green» technologies. As instrument developed and successfully implemented municipal program “Green record.” This program was developed municipalities in collaboration with scientists of Kazan Federal University. Scientific and theoretical foundations of the program are the conception of «ecological carcass (or framework) ». The program is based on the results of studies on the inventory of city green planting. The realization of program has increased the gardening degree from 17 to 23%. Subsequent steps of the program «Green record» will increase the gardening degree and form the elements of structure of the «ecological carcass».

Introduction

Specificity of the strategic city management is to manage public relations, transparency of public inspection. Management of the city cannot be aggressive towards the environment and health of the population [3]. Strategic management is based on the concept of the enterprise as a stable and an isolated system, the operational management – on maintaining high mobility and handling processes and objects. Tactical type occupies an intermediate position [1].

Urban economy requires solving many different issues – social, economic, public, transport, environment and others. Management strategy should include environmental issues. In cities with environmental degradation arise ecological and social conflicts. A stakeholder to resolve them is not only the population, but also heads of municipalities and utilities. Improving the environment can be solved through a series of events: changes in territorial planning, improved wastewater treatment and air emissions, increasing the degree of gardening, landscaping, preservation of natural areas, and more. An example of the development of management strategies in urban areas is the introduction of municipal «green» technologies.

In recent years, social innovation has been increasingly practiced by individuals and their communities, as well as the civil, public and private sector. Although it has practically existed for two hundred years now,1 the pressing social, economic and environmental challenges that cities have recently come to face, together with proliferating advancements in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) have brought social innovation to the forefront of urban development practice and policy. Social innovations are literally everywhere. They happen across and in-between sectors (public, private, civil), they span an extremely large variety of areas (economy, environment, social inclusion, integrated development and others), and they transform urban life in unexpected ways. Social innovations are widely understood as new ideas that aim at meeting social goals (Manzini, 2014; Mulgan, 2006a, 2006b). They are so widespread and game-changing nowadays, that it is impossible to ignore them. The ‘smartest’ and most innovative governments and policy making authorities capitalize on this old but renovated concept by incorporating it in public policy agendas and providing funding, training and networking opportunities for social innovators and their communities. Social innovation has a central role in the European Union (EU)’s Europe2020 strategy towards smart, sustainable and inclusive growth,2 which includes the flagship initiative ‘Innovation Union’, whereby innovation is regarded not as merely industrial, but rather as a means to actualize society’s capacity to organize, act and respond on the persisting challenges of growth, and capitalize on the knowledge generation and transfer opportunities provided by new technology. The European Commission (EC) has in operation a host of different policy instruments to foster social innovation, ranging from networking platforms to financing tools for social innovation initiatives (European Commission − Directorate-General for Internal Market, 2016). Next to the institutional interest on social innovation, leading researchers on sustainability have underlined its importance in contemporary societies due to the new and extraordinary possibilities it opens (Bawens, 2007; Manzini, 2014; Murray, 2009; Tapscott and Williams, 2007). Nevertheless, the all-encompassing idea of social innovation has created conceptual ambiguity as to what it means and how it is practiced. Recent literature calls for more sector-specific research, in order to reach more detailed understanding of its content and particular characteristics (Grimm, Fox, Baines, & Albertson, 2013; Bureau of European Policy Advisers, 2011). Addressing this research gap, in this paper we focus on social innovation for sustainable urban development.

این مقاله به بررسی چارچوبی برای تسهیل اجرای استراتژی توسعه شهری میپردازد. دو جنبه از این چارچوب بررسی شدند؛ عوامل استنباط شده از تجارب قبلی CDS (استراتژی توسعه شهری) چراکه در اجرای استراتژی تاثیر دارند و کارت امتیازی متوازن (BSC) که روش رایجی برای پر کردن شکاف بین تدوین و اجرای استراتژی می باشد. پرسشنامه ای برای جمع آوری داده ها از سهامداران در فرایند برنامه ریزی CDS، اجرا شد. مدلسازی معادله مجذور-ساختاری حداقل جزئی (PLS-SEM) برای تجزیه و تحلیل داده ها استفاده شد. نتایج حاصل از مدل ساختاری نشان داد که سهامداران، مدیریت مالی، نهادینه سازی ، ایجاد ظرفیت (ظرفیت سازی)، و رهبری اثرات مثبت قابل توجهی در اجرای CDS دارند. همچنین این یافته ها رابطه علت و معلولی قابل توجهی بین عوامل برگرفته از مدل BSC را نشان دادند. این مطالعه با آثار گذشته اجرای CDS با بررسی تاثیر ذینفعان، مدیریت مالی، نهادینه، ظرفیت سازی، و رهبری در اجرای CDS آینده، مشارکت میکند. در سطح عملی تر، این یافته ها به بخش گسترده دانش مربوط به چگونگی اجرای موفق CDS در خصوص ایران کمک میکنند.

استراتژی توسعه شهری
اندونزی، فیلیپین، تایلند، ویتنام و چین در میان اولین دریافت کنندگان پروژه های CDS تامین مالی شده توسط بانک جهانی در سال 1990 می باشند. این گیرندگان اولیه CDS تا حد زیادی تحت تاثیر اوراق بهادار “استراتژی شهری” بانک جهانی هستند، که پیرامون چهار تم کلیدی تمرکز دارند؛ قابلیت زندگی، رقابت، توانایی بانک، و حکومتداری و مدیریت خوب (بانک جهانی، 2000). به دنبال نمونه بانک جهانی، اتحاد شهرها نیز CDS را به منظور کمک به شهرها در پاسخ به چالش های جهانی شدن و عدم تمرکز با تمرکز بر توسعه اقتصادی ضعیف ترویج داد (اتحاد شهرها، 2000؛ رابینسون، 2008). در نتیجه، مرحله دوم از اجرای CDS پیرامون کاهش فقر، و پیرامون توسعه اقتصادی و اجتماعی تمرکز کرد (پارنل و رابینسون، 2006). علاوه بر این، برخی از شهرها بهبود در نظارت محلی، توسعه پایدار، و پیگیری اهداف توسعه هزاره را ارتقاء دادند (اقتصاد و CLG، UTS، 2005). پس از دو دهه تجربه با پروژه های CDS در سراسر جهان، چیزی که پدید آمده است این است که هر پروژه CDS منحصر به فرد است زیرا شهر گیرنده بر تم و محتوای مختلف، و بلوک های ساختمان های مختلف و روش های متناسب با الزامات منحصر به فرد و شرایط یک شهرستان خاص تکیه دارد (اتحاد شهرها، 2011).