Assessing the Sustainability of Urban Development

The post-Brundtland directory of environmental assessment outlined in the previous chapter provides the evidence that is needed to counter much of the recent criticism which has recently surfaced about evaluating the sustainability of urban development. Being inter-disciplinary in nature, the directory of environmental assessment also goes some way to setting out the classes, type and range of methods currently available to carry out such evaluations. The object of this chapter is to examine how the environmental assessment methods in question have been applied in evaluating the sustainability of urban development. This will be done by: • studying the results of an exercise that has been undertaken by BEQUEST to map out the extent to which the assessment methods making up the post-Brundtland directory evaluate the sustainability of urban development; • providing an example of how the assessment methods have been applied to evaluate one of the sustainable urban development issues; • examining the findings of the said exercises and the degree to which it is possible to suggest that the evaluations in question offer the opportunity to carry out an integrated assessment of SUD; • reflecting on whether this transformation of environmental assessment builds the environmental capacity needed to sustain cities.