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The Urban Sustainability Indicators in Québec

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Living in the Megacity: Towards Sustainable Urban Environments

Part of the book series: Global Environmental Studies ((GENVST))

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Abstract

This chapter discusses the use of urban sustainability indicators. In traditional approaches, the most exemplary cities are designated based on the value of their overall score for a set of indicators. In this chapter, we argue that such interpretation, on its own, is limited because it does not provide a complete description of the main characteristics that make a city “sustainable” or “not sustainable.” A relative threshold based on two performance criteria is proposed for improvement purpose: the non-substitutability between environmental and socioeconomic performance, and the improvement over time. An empirical analysis of the contribution of these criteria to the sustainability assessment is then conducted. Finally, this chapter discusses the implications of such analysis for megacities.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Given the nature of the indicators to be aggregated, the computation of the GI requires to invert the sign for eight indicators for which a lower score indicates a higher performance.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urban Studies and Tourism, School of Management, University of Québec in Montreal, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Georges A. Tanguay & Juste Rajaonson

Authors
  1. Georges A. Tanguay
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  2. Juste Rajaonson
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Georges A. Tanguay .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, Meguro-ku, Kyoto, Japan

    Shin Muramatsu

  2. Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Terry G. McGee

  3. Faculty of Economics, Shiga University, Hikone, Shiga, Japan

    Koichiro Mori

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Tanguay, G.A., Rajaonson, J. (2021). The Urban Sustainability Indicators in Québec. In: Muramatsu, S., McGee, T.G., Mori, K. (eds) Living in the Megacity: Towards Sustainable Urban Environments. Global Environmental Studies. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-56901-5_10

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