Assessing Urban Sustainability In China: Development Of The Evaluative Framework

The property-led urban development model, conceptualised by Cao and Keivani (2007), has been a paramount impetus for Chinaís robust prosperity over the past 30 years. Nevertheless, the defects of such model are inclined to swell. Problems in environmental, social and economic arenas have continuously emerged, threatening the sustainable development of Chinese cities. This paper aims to investigate impacts of such property-led growth model on urban sustainability through establishing an assessing framework for urban sustainability in the context of property and obtaining views on indicators from an international expert survey. Conforming to core theories of property market, sustainable development and urban governance, a pack of 26 indicators are chosen from 4 indicating sectors as economic, environmental, social and institutional. Opinions on indicators in terms of their importance to urban sustainability are aggregated from an online survey, inviting a pool of over 100 experts at the forefront of the research fields worldwide. They reside in 8 countries including UK, US, China (40%), and 90% of them hold doctoral or professional degrees. Most of them hold senior positions in academic, industry, professional organisations and government bodies with titles such as President, Chairman, Director and Professor. This paper provides a comparative analysis of the survey result by grouping experts into either China-based or Overseas-based. It concludes that such property-focused indicating framework is a virtuous approach to evaluate property-related urban performance and explain unsustainable problems for cities in China and other developing countries with startling tempo of urban transformation and development of the property market.