Sustainable Urban Development Capacity Measure—A Case Study in Jiangsu Province, China

Xuedong Liang,Lei Chen,Fumin Deng,Weiwei Zhang

doi:10.3390/su8030270

Abstract

Measuring the success of sustainable urban development has been difficult in the past. However, as this has become more important in the past few years, this paper develops an innovative sustainable urban development capacity measurement model based on principal component analysis (PCA) and Grey TOPSIS methodology, which has a significantly more comprehensive measurement, and reduces processing time and calculation difficulty. First, PCA is used to extract the main components that affect a city’s sustainable development capacity. Then, the actual sustainable development capacity level is measured using Grey TOPSIS, from which the sustainable development capacity measurement value is then calculated. To prove the model’s effectiveness and operability, it is then applied to measure the sustainable development capacity in 13 cities in Jiangsu province, China.

Highlights

In the twenty-first century, urban sustainability has become a very important factor in urban policy discussions, urban development sustainability policy decisions, and environmental planning [1,2,3]
Uwasu, Hara, and Yabar studied the effects of infrastructure development, land use change, industrial structure, and income on sustainable urban development, the results from which suggested that with steady economic growth, a moderate change in land use was key to sustainable urban development [9]
Under the principle of a comprehensive and integrated index system, a principal component analysis (PCA)-Grey TOPSIS measurement model is established, which has the ability to extract those elements that have the strongest influence on sustainable urban development capacity and which can reduce the amount of work needed to build a grey correlation matrix to determine the best and worst measurement values

Summary

Introduction

In the twenty-first century, urban sustainability has become a very important factor in urban policy discussions, urban development sustainability policy decisions, and environmental planning [1,2,3]. Through extensive research, Tweed and Sutherland examined the link between sustainable urban development and cultural heritage and found that the development and promotion of culture could play an important role [10] All of these studies have provided valuable information to enhance the sustainable development capacity of cities. Most traditional models offer only a simple index calculation analysis measure, which cannot fully reflect the differences in the actual measurement values in comparison with the best or worst standards, meaning that the real sustainable urban development capacity levels cannot be elucidated. Under the principle of a comprehensive and integrated index system, a PCA-Grey TOPSIS measurement model is established, which has the ability to extract those elements that have the strongest influence on sustainable urban development capacity and which can reduce the amount of work needed to build a grey correlation matrix to determine the best and worst measurement values. The model calculates the distance between the sustainable urban development capacity of the actual measured value and best measured value, the results of which are an important basis from which to judge the sustainable development capacity of a city

Sustainable Urban Development Capacity Measurement Index System

Measurement Steps

Case Analysis

B11 B12 B13 B14 B15 B16 B21 B22 B23 B24 B31 B32 B41 B42 B43 B44 B45 B51 B52 B53

Findings

Conclusions