sustainability Article Urban Development Index (UDI): A Comparison between the City of Rio de Janeiro and Four Other Global Cities Rafael Molinaro 1, Mohammad K. Najjar 2 , Ahmed W. A. Hammad 3, Assed Haddad 4 and Elaine Vazquez 5,* 1 Departamento de Construção Civil, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro 21941-909, Brazil;
[email protected] 2 Centro Universitário Gama e Souza (UNIGAMA), Rio de Janeiro 22621-090, Brazil;
[email protected] 3 Faculty of Built Environment, UNSW Sydney, Sydney 2052, Australia;
[email protected] 4 Programa de Engenharia Ambiental, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro 21941-909, Brazil;
[email protected] 5 Programa de Engenharia Urbana, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro 21941-909, Brazil * Correspondence:
[email protected] Received: 4 January 2020; Accepted: 19 January 2020; Published: 22 January 2020 Abstract: One of the methods to assess the urban development of a city is to allocate indicators that quantify its efficiency in performing various functions, such as urban mobility, security, sustainability, and economy, among others. The motivation of this work is the fact that the city of Rio de Janeiro, although widely known and admired around the world for its natural beauty, has a wide negative notoriety regarding its urban functionality. There is a critical need for investment in the city’s infrastructure in order to improve the quality of life of its population. The novelty of this work is in proposing an index that quantifies the urban functionality of the city of Rio de Janeiro and that represents urban development.