ABSTRACT
Three UK Research Councils have jointly established a research programme “Towards the Sustainable City” which is investigating the processes underlying the pursuit of urban sustainability. As part of this programme, a strategic model of the urban sustainability process, the Quantifiable City, is being developed, based on the city of Leeds, both to aid policy development and as a test-bed for research ideas.
The paper reviews the background to the project. The model development strategy is then described, and details are given of the sustainability parameters to be used, the construction of the conceptual model, the model framework, the incorporation of sectoral models, and the audit of available data. A final section describes future stages in the development and application of the model.
