Sustainable Architecture and Urban Development 19

MuSIC - A Multi-scalar Index for Evaluating Sustainability in Cities

Luca D'Acci and Patrizia Lombardi Politecnico di Torino, DICAS - Department 0/Housing and City

Abstract It is intemationally recognized that Sustainable development is achallenging multi-stake holders process, encompassing multiple dimensions and trans­ disciplinary knowledge. The idea of sustainability dates back more than 30 years. Over these decades, govemments, communities and businesses have all responded to the challenge of sustainability to some extent. Citizens in alm ost all countries not only know the issues, but tend to feel that the quality of the environment is important both to their own wellbeing and to the common good. Despite all these efforts, when the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) released the results of a four-year global study into the state of global ecosystem services and the possible consequences of anticipated ecosystem change on human wellbeing, the board feit it necessary to present the following waming: ... the results of human activity are putting such astrain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted. According to Adams (2006), one of the reasons is the problem of metrics as a result of the desire to set targets and measure progress. Using indicators as a means for measuring or assessing the sustainability of cities and practices intended to improve sustainability is criticized for several reasons. One of the main concems is the way in which indicators are developed through often "ad hoc" processes without a structured framework or consensus on what urban sustainability is, a consensus which is still more of a political than a scientific enterprise. Most present indicators have been developed by govemments and intergovemmental bodies in response to their needs. This ensures policy relevance, but often fails to capture what is going on at the grass roots of society. Other indicators have been created by CSOs or academics to draw attention to policy issues. Few indicators have been devised by or are designed for the real 20 Luca D'Acci & Patrizia Lombardi

agents of change businesses and individuals operating at a decentralized level in aB societies. Most critical, many of the indicators, even the much-used statistics relies on assumptions that when we draw our conc\usions. This study presents the work wh ich has been done toward the development of a new index to measure the sustainability of eities having the following characteristics: complementary - displaying multi-scalar reeiprocity and transferable - comparable across spatial scales and stakeholder interest. This index wishes also to address the question of how to overcome the gap between awareness of the issues at stake and the concrete engagement in sustainability-driven action, as individuals and as a soeiety.

Keywords: sustainable development indicators, built environment, evaluation

1 Introdudion

"At the heart of the sustainable development agenda is the question of management" (Brandon and Lombardi, 2005: 144). The most difficult chaUenge facing policymakers is deciding the future directions of society and the economy in the face of conflicting demands of short-term political favour, economic development, social progress, and environmental sustainability. Wrong deeisions can lead to critical consequences, increase human suffering, and precipitate current environmental and economic crises. Improving the basis for sound decision-making is, therefore, a high priority. The requirement to evaluate whether a development is sustainable was already recognized in Agenda 21, which observed that "indicators of sustainable development need to be developed to provide solid bases for decision-making at an levels". As a result, the last twenty years have seen a overabundance of measures, indicators and evaluations which attempt to make some assessment of what is happening to our planet and the actions of human beings upon it. However, the development of indicators has resulted in considerable complexity, which has made it difficult to derive suitable assessment criteria. Notions of weak and strong sustainable development have been debated in the literature, and a number of indicators or frameworks have been proposed to capture them. For weak sustainability, efforts have focused on whether the well­ known macroeconomic indicators of gross national product and gross domestic product can be transformed to produce an indicator of sustainable development. For strong sustainability, the concept of critical natural capital was introduccd for the stocks of capital that cannot be substituted by other stocks of environmental or other capital to perform the same functions (Ekins et al., 2003). Sustainable Architecture and Urban Development 21

Sustainability indicators should be able to measure the essential characteristics of the system and show a scientifically verifiable trajeetory of maintenance or improvement in system funetions. Unfortunately, like models, indieators reflect reality imperfectly. Within the measurable, the quality of indicators is determined largely by the way reality is translated into measures and data, be they quantitative or qualitative. Although present scientifie knowledge is inadequate to understand many aspeets of human-environment interaetions, and some feedback loops between human and environmental systems are irreducibly complex, many issues are sufficiently weIl understood to necessitate seientifieally aecurate indieators. The quality of indieators inevitably depends on the underlying data that are used to compose them. The prevailing data gaps in monitoring of human-environment interactions and the poor quality of many databases are potential threats to the quality of the related indieators. Many indicator sets have been assembled; countries have started their own indieator programs at the national level, since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 adopted Agenda 21 and launched an international indicator process. Methods are gradually becoming standardized and poliey decisions inereasingly provide clear directions and targets. However, major conceptual ehallenges remain, methods need further development, and more must be learned about the most effective ways to influence policy. We are still far from fully integrated sets of indicators or indices to support self-regulating sustainability. The eomplexity of the problem makes a complete and intemationally accepted measure impossible (Brandon and Lombardi, 2005). The aim of this paper is to critically analysis major shortcomings of eurrent metrics and to introduce a new index which seems to be able to overeome some ofthe identified limitations.

2 A critical Analysis of Current lndicators and Indices

Indicators are symbolic representations designed to communicate a property or trend in a complex system or entity. They are, by definition, eommunication tools (EEA, 2007) that: Simplify complex issues making them accessible to a wider audience (i.e. non-experts), • Can encourage decision-making by pointing to clear steps in the causal chain where it can be broken, Inform and empower policymakers and laypeople by creating a means for the measurement of progress in tackling environmental progress. It is the capaeity of the indicator to reach its target audience that determines its success. Failure to communicate makes the indieator worthless. However, beeause sustainable development is a multi-stakeholder process, indicators must communicate to a variety of different actors. 22 Luca D'Acci & Patrizia Lombardi

Indicators are distinguished from raw data and statistics in that they contain reference values such as benchmarks, thresholds, baselines, and targets. Such values have the most important function to transform meaningless data into information. Several basic types of indicators or indices may be distinguished by their methods of construction and level of aggregation, as folIows: Indicator: Ihis type of indicators includes results from the processing and interpretation of primary data. Examples include C02 emissions, employment rates, etc .. Aggregated indicator: This type of indicators combines, by an additive aggregation method, a number of sub-indicators that are defined in the same or similar units, e.g. tones, monetary units, etc .. Examples include the domestic material consumption, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the Adjusted Net Saving and the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), developed by the World Bank. Composite indicator or Index: This type of indicators combines various aspects of a given phenomenon that are based on the complex concept into a single number with a common unit. Examples include the Ecological Footprint, the Human Development Index (HOl), Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI); the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), the Urban Govemance Index (UGI). To be effective, indicators must be credible (and/or scientifically valid), legitimate in the eyes of users and stakeholders, and salient or relevant to decision-makers. More specifically, the quality of an indicator can be judged on five methodological dimensions: purpose and appropriateness in scale and accuracy, measurability, representation ofthe phenomenon concemed, reliability and feasibility, and communicability to the target audience. There is seldom a perfeet indicator, so the design generally involves some methodological trade­ offs between technical feasibility, societal usability, and systemic consistency. A key challenge for sustainability indicators is to retlect time lags, the trade­ offs between the short and long term, and the distinction between weak and strong sustainability. For instance, it is recognized that the economic, social, and environmental dimensions ("three-pillars") of sustainable development have different characteristic time scales. Environmental systems evolve slowly and have longer time lags between cause and effect than economic systems. A parallel mismatch in time scales occurs between the methods in the disciplines that study the different pillars. Ihis makes it hard to present sustainability to policymakers, who tend to act on experience rather than insight and therefore take action only when a problem is observable, not when a problem is predicted, especially i f the prediction is uncertain. Ihere are similar challenges in relating indicators at different spatial scales, where the same indicator may have different meanings in different contexts or when applied at different scales. Unsustainable states, trends, and drivers may be apparent only when indicated at the appropriate scale. A local community can appear sustainable if it exports its unsustainable consumption or waste disposal. Sustainable Architecture and Urban Development 23

Similarly, indicators may show a high per-capita income at the national scale, for example, while hiding significant inequities between sub-regions and societal groups. To compensate for this we need indicator sets in a nested hierarchical structure covering different geographic scales or units. The modem Sustainable Development Indicator (SDI) process started at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Since that time, many data sets have been developed, to the extent that most national sustainability programmes report progress against indicators that have been derived from a domestic selection process. Recent surveys estimate that there are now over 600 formal or recognised full sustainable indicator sets in use, and many more that have been informally developed, or have been created as a subset of the targer agenda (Therivel, 2004; Homer, 2004). [n the last decades, there have been several efforts to develop aggregated or composite indicators to capture elements of sustainable development. Most of them are specifically focussed on the environmental dimension of sustainable development and resource management ad they are mainly used for raising public awareness and receive attention in the media (UN, 2007). The large number of indicator systems available at present illustrates the important role that indicators and assessment methods play in the study of urban sustainability (Lombardi & Cooper, 2007; Alwaer, et al., 2009; Lombardi, et al., 2010). However, using indicators as a means for measuring or assessing the sustainability of cities and practices intended to improve sustainability is being criticized for several reasons. One of the main concerns i8 the way in which indicators are developed through often "ad hoc" processes without a structured framework or consensus on what urban sustainability is (Alberti, 1996; MitcheJl, 1997; Bossei, 1998; Lombardi & Cooper, 2009). Most present indicators have been developed by governments and intergovernmental bodies in response to their needs. This ensures policy relevance, but often fails to capture what is going on at the grass roots of society. Other indicators have been created by Civil Society Organizations or academics to draw attention to policy issues. Few indicators have been devised by or are designed for the real agents of change businesses and individuals operating at a decentralized level in all societies. The issue of how to reconcile the centralized approaches needed to produce standard comparable indicators and the decentralized nature of most decision making affecting sustainability has not yet been explored (Lombardi and Cooper, 2009; Lombardi et al., 2010). A further concern is that detailed indicator systems "are often difficult to operationalize ... as precise empirical evidence is not always available or accessible" (Finco & Nijkamp, 2001:296). Most critical, many of the indicators reflect the specific interests of their authors, they are blunt to say the least (BosseI, 1998, Sveiby Karl-Erik, 2004; Adams, 2006). Even much-used statistics rely on assumptions that are often hidden when we draw OUf conclusions. In other words, often the decision determines the indicators chosen. 24 Luca D'Acci & Patrizia Lombardi

As such the development of indicators is "a dialectic process that goes hand in hand with the development of policies" (Foxon, et al., 1999: 146), and not necessarily the product of an empirically-derived understanding of what would constitute sustainability in the particular domain in which the indicator is to be used for assessment. Chapter 40 of Agenda 21 acknowledges that "commonly used indicators such as GNP and measurement of individual source or pollution flows do not provide adequate indications of sustainability" and states that "indicators of sustainable development need to be developed to provide solid bases for decision-making at all levels and to contribute to a self-regulating sustainability of integrated environment and development systems" (UNCED 1992). Many indicator sets have been assembled, but none has been widely implemented, and their integration to support self-regulating sustainability is still a major challenge. The development of indicators is still seen by OECD as one of the major topics within sustainable development projects and pro grams (OECD, 2004). There is, however, no ideal indicator that fully combines an the desired qualities. There are always trade-offs and the goal is not to eliminate these trade­ offs but to make them transparent and to identify and avoid major constraints. Thus, there is no one recommended indicator set but different approaches that may be appropriate for particular uses. Next sections will introduce a new index to measure the sustainability of cities having the following characteristics: complementary - displaying multi­ scalar reciprocity and transferable - comparable across spatial scales and stakeholder interest. This index aims also to address the question of how to overcome the gap between awareness of the issues at stake and the concrete engagement in sustainability-driven action, as individuals and as a society.

3 The New Multi-scalar Index

The structure ofthe new index, that we propose, is built on three different levels: 1- Urban Sustainability Index (US1); II- Architectural Sustainability Index (ASI); III- Socia! 8ehaviour Sustainability Index (8SI). Each Index is a weighed sum of specific indicators able to capture, different aspects connected to the meaning of Sustainability in urban context. The final index is given by:

MuSIC = USI + ASI + 8S1 using coefficients that measure the influence of each indicator like, for example, 0.4 for USI, 0.32 for ASl and 0.28 for BSI. Sustainable Arehiteeture and Urban Development 25

The Vrban Sustainability Index (USI) takes into aeeount the following faetors: 1. Pollution (P); 2. Green (G); 3. Moving Sustainability (M); 4. Pedestrian areas (P); 5. Eeologyand Efficieney ofthe public illumination (I); 6. Equality ofthe ease ofusing urban Attraetions (A); 7. Urban Sprawl (S). 8. Where Pollution includes both Level of air pollution (Lp) and the ratio of the air pollution Level to the number of inhabitants (Relative Pollution, Rp) with the same importanee. Green is the ratio of the square metres of urban public green (parks and gardens) to the number of inhabitants. Moving Sustainability is given by other three sub-indieators: passen gers yeady transported by publie transport per habitant (Public Transport, Pt); Eeology of the fuel of the public transport, such as Natural Gas, Electrieity, Petrol, ete. (Eeology Fuel, Ef); Density of eyde path, as kilometres of eyde path per 100 km2 ofurban surface (Oe). Pedestrian areas is the ratio of the square metres of pedestrian areas (streets, squares...) to the number of inhabitants. Ecology and Effieieney of the public illumination is eonneeted to the ecology and effieiency of lamps used, and of the light spot distribution, in order to avoid waste of illumination and illumination pollution too. Equality of the ease of using the urban Attraetions is assoeiated with the eitizen easiness of using (value of use) the city attractions, Iike the amenitieslbeauties improving the urban life quality. The value of use, defined as a value assigned to goods in funetion of their own eapability to satisfy our exigeneies, is here eonnected to the exigeney of urban life pleasantness. Then, the publie-goods in whieh we are interested for this indieator are attraetions like niee gardens and parks, pedestrian areas, eultural faeilities, agreeable plaees and streets, pleasant shopping areas, and so forth. This eoeffieient is eonneeted to the uniformity of the distribution of these attraetions: the lower it is the more uniform the distribution iso lt represents the benefit of every urban point (or of eaeh citizen Iiving in each urban point), given by every attraction in the city, and it depends on the distance, level, number and reciprocal position of the attractions, and also on the Mobility (measured by a coefficient, called Efficacy of Moving, eonsisting ofthree moving variables: cost, speedy and comfort). Urban Sprawl measures the urban dispersion by the following indicators (with the same weigh): Urban Shape eoefficient (US) and Density Uniformity 26 Luca D'Acci & Patrizia Lombardi

coefficient (DU). 80th are indireet ways to measure the waste of natural area and the level of urban dispersion that does not allow an efficient use of territory. Moreover, this dispersion involves a big need of energy for infrastructures and movement of people and goods. US is calculated by the ratio of the ratio of the Perimeter to the Area of the City (Pe, Ac), to the ratio of the Perimeter to the Area of a circle with the same Area of the studied city (P*, A *); that means doing directly the ratio of Pe to P*. When the city interested is close to the shape of a circle we use the p* of a circle of area Ac. However, when the city is close to the shape of a semicircle (like a lot of cities on the shoreline), we use the p* of a semicircle of area Ac. A similar change is possible for linear city, using as reference the maximum longitudinal or transversal dimensions. DU measures the uniformity of the population density, not considering the areas used for parks, gardens, rivers, lakes ... We divide the city in squares (for example with I km of side) having Di density of population. DU is the ratio of the Standard Deviation of these Di densities to the average value of it. Transforming each variable into index from 0 to 1 through:

index ~~~min xmax-· xmin

where x is the value we want to transform and Xmin and Xmax are its mInImum and maximum values, we can calculate the Urban Sustainability Index (USI) by means ofthe follow equation:

Where:

P = 'ßLP' Lp + ßRp . Rp :

M 'ßPt . Pt + ßEf . Er + ßDc . Dc :

S ~ 'ßus ·US+ ßou ·DU: In which u are the coefficients ofthe indicators, and ßthe coefficients ofthe sub­ indicators. The value of these coefficients depends on the importance the relative variables have in the formation of the global index USI. For example, if we use the following scores to evaluate the aforesaid importance, we can obtain the u coefficients as folIows:

Were, using a score (SVj) from I (minimum influence) to 5, each variable (Vi) gets its own relative coefficient Uvi through: Sustainable Architecture and Urban Development 27

SV, LS~ i In the same way we obtain the eoefficients ß: ßLp ßRp =0.5

ßPI = 0.45; ßEf 0.25; ßoc 0.3 We highlight that this Multiscalar Index is useful only for medium or big cities. In fact, just as an example, the variable Pt (Public Transport), could result very low in little towns, just because the town is so small that maybe the most efficient way to move inside its perimeter is on foot or by bike, or even by car, beeause there is no problem oftraffic and parking. We also underline that we are evaluating the Sustainability then, for example, we are interested in the Level of air Pollution but also, or perhaps especially, in its ratio to the dimension of the city (Rp). The Architectural Sustainability Index (ASO takes into account the following factors: I. Energetic Efficiency of the buildings (Ee); 2. Recyclability/Ecology ofthe building materials (Rm). Where Ee considers the most relevant faetors conneeted to energetic efficieney in a building. The Social Behaviour Sustainability Index (BSI) takes into aecount the following faetors: I. Rate ofmotorization (Rm); 2. Consumption of Electricity and water for domestic use (Cew); 3. Separate Collection ofRubbish (Sc); 4. Municipal Waste Management (Mw) Where Rm is the number of cars per 1000 habitant; Cew is the consumption of electricity (KWhlhabitant) and water (ltlhabitant) for domestic use; Sc is the ratio between the quantity of the separate collection of rubbish and the quantity of the total rubbish; Mw is conneeted to the problem of municipal waste, that consists of organic substances, paper, metal, textiles, glass, synthetic materials and toxie substance (Brandon & Lombardi 2005).

4 MuSIC index and National Well-Being & Progress

The MuSIC index is proposed for evaluating Sustainability in Cities. In this section we show how it can conveniently be included in a National global index evaluating the Well-Being and the Progress ofthe countries. A big work is being carried out to study appropriate measurements of Well­ Being including a more holistic vision of the development and welfare of a 28 Luca D'Acci & Patrizia Lombardi

~ country. In the Conference Beyomt"GDP (European Parliament, 2007 Brussels), Joaqufn Almunia, European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Policy, started his speech usinl},these words: "The range of partners involved in today's conference and the participants that have joined us from all over the world are proof of the importance we now place on finding accurate measurements of societal progress and weil being". Later, tal king about the typical index used until now to measure progress and welfare, the Gross Domestic Product, he said: "GDP [ ...] cannot distinguish between activities that have a negative or a positive impact on wellbeing. Also, GDP does not take into account the non-economic factors that add to weil being [ ... ] These limitations do not undermine the intrinsic value of GDP per se. But it should not be considered as a benchmark of the overall progress of a society as is 80metimes the case. [ ...] We need to find measures that will complement GDP and build a more nuanced and accurate understanding of economic and societal progress. [ ... ] Gross Domestic Product i8 an indispensable measure of economic activity that has successfully steered our economies through the post-war period, underpinning the prosperity we enjoy today. However, new challenges of the 21 st century require new statistical instruments. Only this way can we both build our understanding of the shifts in our societies and develop our capacity to respond effectively". At the same conference the following were the words of the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, in the opening speech: "Let me give you an example. Adecision is made to ban all trade in certain types of precious hardwood to preserve an ecologically important forest. The policy is a great success. The forest is preserved for future generations. The ecosystem, and all the life it supports, is protected. Tourism too is safeguarded. In other words, well-being goes up. But what will be the evaluation of this decision if only measured by GDP? lt is difficult, and l'm sure that everyone will agree to make tough decisions that promote long-term well-being, even if the short-term consequence is a drop in GDP" Even the Noble Laureate Simon Kuznets, one of the main originators of GDP, said: "the welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income" (Kuznets, 1934), and almost 30 years later he wrote: "Distinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of growth, between costs and returns, and between the short and long run. Goals for more growth should specif)' more growth ofwhat and for what" (Kuznets, 1962). In this direction several alternative indicators were proposed in these last years, like, for example, the Human Development Index (HDI), the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW), the Gross National Happiness (GNH), Quality of life index, Life Quality Index (LQI). The HDI combines normalized measures of life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment, and GDP per capita. Life expectancy at birth, as an index of population health and longevity. Knowledge and education (literacy and Sustainable Architecture and Urban Development 29 educational attainment), as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weighting) and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrollment ratio (with one-third weighting). Standard of living (GDP per capita), as measured by the natural logarithm (to reduce the impact beyond a certain level) of gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity (GDPppp). Each of these 3 factors has the same weight. The origin of this index is to be found in the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) Human Development Reports (HDRs). These were launched by Mahbub ul Haq in 1990. ( The GPI indicator takes into account everything the GDP uses, but adding the cost of the negative effects related to, economic activity (such as the cost of crime, the cost of ozone deptetion and the cost of resource depletion, among others). lt was proposed in' 1994 by CliffCobb. The ISEW combines personal consumption, public non-defensive expenditures, capital formation, services from domestic labour (costs of environmental degradation, depreciation of natural capital, private defensive expenditures). The index is based on the ideas presented by William Nordhaus and James Tobin in 1972. It was first coined in 1989 by Herman Daly and John B. Cobb. They later went on adding several other "costs" to the definition of lSEW. In this later work they built the Genuine Progress Indicator. The GNH includes Psychological wellbeing indicators, Ecology indicators. Health indicators, Education indicators, Culture indicators, Living Standards indicators, Time Use indicators, Community Vitality indicators and Good Govemance indicators. It was coined in 1972 by Bhutan's former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck. The nine quality-of-life factors utilized and the indicators used to represent these factors are: Material wellbeing (GDP per person, at PPP in $), Health (Life expectancy at birth ( in years», Political stability and security , Family life (Divorce rate per 1,000 of population), converted into an index of value 1 (for the lowest divorce rates) to 5 (the highest), Community life (a dummy variable taking value 1, if country has either high rate of church attendance or of trade­ union membership, zero otherwise), Climate and geography (Latitude), Job security (Unemployment rate), Political freedom (The average of indices of political and civil liberties. Scale of 1 (completely free) to 7 (not free at all», Gender equality (Ratio of average male and female eamings). 1t was developed by The Economist Intelligence Unit in 2005. The mathematical expression for the Life-Quality Index, L, is: L EKG where E is the expectancy of healthy life at birth, G is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per person, and the parameter K i8 a constant based on time budget studies available for many countries (K is approximately equal to 5.0 for deve10ped nations). It was defined byNathwani in 1997. A new index proposed by 0'Acci (201 0), the Well-being & Progress Index (WIP), combines measures of Health well-being, Economic well-being, Happiness, Human progress, Cultural progress, Quality of the Urban 30 Luca D'Acci & Patrizia Lombardi

Environment and Ecological behaviours. The most frequently used indexes usually focus only some aspects, Iike ecology, or economy, or policy, or education, or happiness, and so forth. On the contrary, this new WIP index allows aglobai and well-balanced vision, thanks to the large range of indicators used, and thanks to their good representativeness. The Health weIl-being is represented by the life expectancy at birth; the Economic well-being is a combination ofrichness and equality, calculated using the GOP per capita, the Gini index and the Unemployment total (as % of labour force), where the Gini index is a coefficient measuring the equality ofthe income distribution, the value 0 represents absolute equality, the value of 100 absolute inequality. The Happiness is represented by the Subjective well-being. The Cultural progress is represented by an Education Index and the number of Researchers in research and development (per million people). The Human progress is a combination among Freedom, Woman equality and Intentional homicides (per 100.000 people). The Education Index is the same used in the Human Oevelopment Index (HOl), and it is measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weighting) and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrollment ratio (with one-third weighting). The Freedom index is a combination of Political rights (Electoral process, Political pluralism and participation, Functioning of govemment), and Civil liberties (Freedom of expression and belief, Associational and organizational rights, Rule oflaw, Personal autonomy and Individual rights). The Woman equality combines the Seats in parliament held by women, the Ratio of estimated female to male eamed income, and the Combined gross enrolment ratio for primary, secondary and tertiary education, fe male (%). The Quality ofthe Urban Environment considers several aspects connected to two aspects that here we can just briefly mention: the Pleasantness ofUrban Life in Free time (PULF) and in Everyday life (PULE). PULF is connected to the will of going to the nicest places in the city, and 10 the number and the quality of them; PULE derives from the pleasantness given from the city beauties and services in our own daily life (where we are living and working, or passing through). Then PULE evaluates more carefully the spatial distribution of the beauties, the general condition of life quality and the services in each urban area, (0'Acci, 2009, p. 245). The Ecological behaviours is an indicator that measures the Sustainability of the Public and Private behaviours, both in urban and in natural environment. The new MuSIC index can be integrated in the last two above mentioned indicators of WIP - Quality of the Urban Environment and Ecological behaviours, thus providing a complete indicator, taking into account each aspect connected to the quality, the weIl-being and the progress in a urban environment. Sustainable Architecture and Urban Development 31

In this new aggregated indicator called "Quality and Sustainability of the Environment" (QSE), a combination of MuSIC index and Quality of the Urban Environment and Ecological behaviours indicators, each measurement is transformed into index from 0 to I, and the Well-being & Progress Index is the average value of these 11 indices in which each one has the same influence, except for Researchers in research and development that counts half. This last index is weighted 0.5 for not distorting the final score in those countries where a good part of the economy is specifically buHt on research activities (like in Finland).

5 Future Research and Conclusion

This paper has firstly introduced the problems of indicators as a mean to properly evaluate sustainable development in cities for decision making. Secondly, it has introduced a new index, named MuSIC, with high policy relevance. Why is it politically relevant? MuSIC focuses on the core issue of the sustainability debate, i.e. on cltles. According to Rees (1999:43), "it is in cities that the greatest opportunities exist to make the changes necessary for general sustainability". The role of the city in the sustainability debate is set to become even more important, as from some point early this century, the city, as horne to the majority of the world's population, will be the dominant expression ofhuman settlement. It is estimated that by 2030, 60% of world's population will live in cities - a trend that equals the addition ofone city of one million people each week (UN Habitat, 2004). The city, therefore, is to become a main arena for meeting the twin goals of sustainable development: protecting the environment's capacity to continue providing vital services to future generations (seen as the 'sustainable' part of sustainable development), and meeting present human needs (seen as the 'development' aspect of sustainable development). However, as pointed out by du Plessis (2009: 75), "wh at sustainable development means in an urban context, is still an uncertain and contentious subject despite almost half a century of debate". In terms of indicators development, this means that MuSIC is no more that a new "technical" exercise, a theoretical proposal which currently requires testing and validation through real world case studies. The authors ofthis paper are aware of this and future research activities and collective concerned actions will be put forward to tackle this requirement. Additionallimitations of the proposed index are as folIows. MuSIC incIudes variables which made it useful only for medium or big cities. In addition, it reflects only the development's conception of Western economic paradigm countries. Data also are more available in industrialized countries. Developing countries may have different perspectives and priorities. Cultures probably differ most in social needs such as freedom, acceptance, respect, equity, 32 Luca 0'Acci & Patrizia Lombardi

participation, and gender issues. Nevertheless, a common foundation of values is expressed in UN declarations and conventions on human rights, child labor, and others that identify specific issues (the indicator) and minimum levels. Cultural differences may be expressed in the levels or targets that are seen as sustainable. Additional \imitations of this index ean be highlighted as folIows. Firstly, as most existing sustainability indieators, it is a quantitative measure of sustainability in eities. This limitation of quantitative excludes some significant factors which can be assessed only via qualitative measures (e.g. social cohesion, happiness or "sense of plaee"). The social sciences generate qualitative indieators, using ordinal scales. Integrating these data with quantitative data remains a critieal methodological issue. Secondly, it should not be forgotten that as all existing indicators, this is merely an assessment 1OoJ, for which the cost of improvements should not limit the capacity to implement policy. The two must be matched in cost-effective ways. lt go es without saying that this index cannot replace scientific studies of cause and effect; it is merely a presentation ofassociations and links between variables. In choosing to present variables together as part of an indicator, we have made an assumption about the connection between them. Therefore, indicators can never replace statistical analysis of data or the development and testing of sound hypotheses. In conclusion, what can be envisaged for the future of indicators of sustainability. According to Platt et al. (2009), there are two options: letting the present anarchy continue until survival of the fittest prevails or implementing more strategie intervention and guidanee. The former might lead to the survival of the financially and politically strongest rather than the scientifically most appropriate, with a bias toward the wealthiest countries. It would be in the interest of the international community to try to make the process more balanced and objective by giving it some direction or leadership. At so me point, one or more appropriate indices will need to become institutionalized to provide sufficient stability and credibility for widespread use by governments, but it is not c1ear how this will happen.

Acknowledgements

Although this paper has been outlined jointly by the two authors, Luca 0'Acci has written paragraphs 3 & 4, while Patrizia Lombardi has developed the remaining paragraphs. Sustainable Architecture and Urban Development 33

References

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