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9 - Assessing Urban Sustainability through Participatory Multi-Criteria Approaches (PMCAs): An Updated Comparative Analysis

from Part II - Integrative Approaches for Sustainability Assessment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2020

By
Albert Merino-Saum
Edited by
Claudia R. Binder ,
Romano Wyss  and
Emanuele Massaro
Claudia R. Binder
Affiliation:
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Romano Wyss
Affiliation:
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Emanuele Massaro
Affiliation:
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
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Summary

This chapter presents a comparative analysis of four Participatory Multi-Criteria Approaches (PMCAs) usually applied in sustainability assessments (SMCE, MCM, 3-SPM, and INTEGRAAL). Such approaches are presented in detail and subsequently compared to each other according to three elementary yet crucial questions: who assesses?; what is assessed?; and how is it assessed? The results outline potential synergies and theoretical incompatibilities between the four approaches. The analysis also supports future PMCA applications when choosing one particular approach according to: key meta-principles (i.e., epistemological stance, methodological emphasis); logistical constraints (e.g., time, budget); local idiosyncrasies (e.g., pertinent geographical scales, power asymmetries); and organisational factors.

Keywords

Sustainability Solution Spaceurban sustainabilityindicatorsustainability assessmentparticipatoryexperttrade-offssystemicnormative
Type
Chapter
Information
Sustainability Assessment of Urban Systems , pp. 209 - 238
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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