The urban sustainable development goal: Indicators, complexity and the politics of measuring cities

Abstract

As part of the post-2015 United Nations sustainable development agenda, the world has its first urban sustainable development goal (USDG) “to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. This paper provides an overview of the USDG and explores some of the difficulties around using this goal as a tool for improving cities. We argue that challenges emerge around selecting the indicators in the first place and also around the practical use of these indicators once selected. Three main practical problems of indicator use include 1) the poor availability of standardized, open and comparable data 2) the lack of strong data collection institutions at the city scale to support monitoring for the USDG and 3) “localization” - the uptake and context specific application of the goal by diverse actors in widely different cities. Adding to the complexity, the USDG conversation is taking place at the same time as the proliferation of a bewildering array of indicator systems at different scales. Prompted by technological change, debates on the “data revolution” and “smart city” also have direct bearing on the USDG. We argue that despite these many complexities and challenges, the USDG framework has the potential to encourage and guide needed reforms in our cities but only if anchored in local institutions and initiatives informed by open, inclusive and contextually sensitive data collection and monitoring.