Chapter 9
The City Sustainability Index (CSI): How
Should the Sustainability of Megacities Be
Assessed?
Koichiro Mori
9.1 Introduction
More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, and it is projected that the
urban population will rise to 6.3 billion by 2050 out of a total of 9.3 billion
(UNDESA 2012). Considering the size of cities in the world, we cannot ignore
their impacts on the natural environment, economy, and society. Cities provide both
positive and negative agglomeration effects: for example, increasing returns to scale
on investment in infrastructure, accumulation of knowledge and skills, but also costs
of traffic congestion and high housing costs (Henderson 1974; Segal 1976; Krugman
1993; Saxenian 1994). Cities should therefore be regulated, paying attention to
tradeoffs among agglomeration benefits and costs.
Cities play an important role in promoting human socioeconomic activities in a
concentrated manner. They are expected to be places for fostering the well-being of
people without abject poverty, although they struggle against “urban divide” issues
(UN-Habitat 2006; UN-Habitat 2008; UN-Habitat 2013). On the other hand, negative external impacts of cities on the global environment have become a serious issue
that needs to be addressed immediately, particularly their negative contribution to
global climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions (Kamal-Chaoui and Robert
2009; Dodman 2009; OECD 2010). Since the capacity of natural depletable and
renewable resources is limited, the environmental burdens of individual cities must
be restricted. However, social and economic living standards should not be sacrificed
for the sake of environmental sustainability. Thus, the challenge we face is to
equally pursue the triple bottom line—economic prosperity, distributional equity,
and environmental sustainability—that seems to have a trade-off relationship
K. Mori (*)
Faculty of Economics, Shiga University, Hikone, Shiga, Japan
e-mail: ko-mori@biwako.shiga-u.ac.jp
© Springer Japan KK, part of Springer Nature 2021
S. Muramatsu et al. (eds.), Living in the Megacity: Towards Sustainable Urban
Environments, Global Environmental Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-56901-5_9
163
The City Sustainability Index (CSI): How
Should the Sustainability of Megacities Be
Assessed?
Koichiro Mori
9.1 Introduction
More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, and it is projected that the
urban population will rise to 6.3 billion by 2050 out of a total of 9.3 billion
(UNDESA 2012). Considering the size of cities in the world, we cannot ignore
their impacts on the natural environment, economy, and society. Cities provide both
positive and negative agglomeration effects: for example, increasing returns to scale
on investment in infrastructure, accumulation of knowledge and skills, but also costs
of traffic congestion and high housing costs (Henderson 1974; Segal 1976; Krugman
1993; Saxenian 1994). Cities should therefore be regulated, paying attention to
tradeoffs among agglomeration benefits and costs.
Cities play an important role in promoting human socioeconomic activities in a
concentrated manner. They are expected to be places for fostering the well-being of
people without abject poverty, although they struggle against “urban divide” issues
(UN-Habitat 2006; UN-Habitat 2008; UN-Habitat 2013). On the other hand, negative external impacts of cities on the global environment have become a serious issue
that needs to be addressed immediately, particularly their negative contribution to
global climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions (Kamal-Chaoui and Robert
2009; Dodman 2009; OECD 2010). Since the capacity of natural depletable and
renewable resources is limited, the environmental burdens of individual cities must
be restricted. However, social and economic living standards should not be sacrificed
for the sake of environmental sustainability. Thus, the challenge we face is to
equally pursue the triple bottom line—economic prosperity, distributional equity,
and environmental sustainability—that seems to have a trade-off relationship
K. Mori (*)
Faculty of Economics, Shiga University, Hikone, Shiga, Japan
e-mail: ko-mori@biwako.shiga-u.ac.jp
© Springer Japan KK, part of Springer Nature 2021
S. Muramatsu et al. (eds.), Living in the Megacity: Towards Sustainable Urban
Environments, Global Environmental Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-56901-5_9
163