The metropolitan region: from concepts to indicators of urban sustainability

Abstract

The metropolitan region is regarded as the most appropriate unit to address sustainable urbanism. However, the metropolitan region's building blocks, from region to city to neighborhood to building site, are rarely invoked in recent discussions of urban sustainability. This paper broadens the discourse by defining sustainability as having the enduring qualities of built and natural environments, highlighting the connection of each scale to the sustainability of the metropolitan region as a whole. In addition, I review the implications for indicators and standards that operationally benchmark sustainability in cities and regions. The paper concludes with a discussion that draws on regionalism's better known holistic connotations of urban sustainability, with an emphasis on form, function and the limits of regionalism. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Publication Title

Journal of Urbanism

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