Measuring the Smart Growth Pattern for Medium-Sized Cities

Abstract

“Smart growth” is an urban planning concept, valuing long-range sustainability of the city’s growth over short-term expansion, its focus embracing the 3Es of evaluation dimensions: i.e., economic prosperity, social equity, and environmental sustainability, each consisting of multiple indicators emphasizing heterogeneous aspects of the dimensions. In this study, 10 indicators are selected and a metric model is proposed to quantify a city’s development pattern with respect to smart growth criteria, followed by a growth model evaluating the patterns toward the 3Es of the smart growth. The models are then tested in two cities (Dunhuang, China, and Bonn, Germany). Their magnitudes in smart growth are measured by evaluating their current growth plans in the light of the smart growth metrics. Results of the robust test for population expansion for each city indicate that the method proposed in this study is, in fact, quite effective in evaluating the smart growth pattern for medium-sized cities.