Expressing that the earth is becoming an urban planet and about 88 percent of population growth lives in cities, he said 90 percent of this growth is occurring in the major cities of the developing world.

Pointing out that currently, 3.9 billion people live in urban areas and this figure is expected to reach 75 percent of the world’s population i.e. 6.3 billion by 2050, the secretary of IUESA further said concern about the consequences of extensive urbanization and the immense impact of cities on the Earth’s ecosystem, as well as the failure of development patterns, in general, and urban development and planning patterns and schools, in particular, led to the emergence and analysis of sustainable development, urban sustainability, and sustainable city in the last decades of the 20th century.

Emphasizing that urban sustainability is considered from different aspects, but in general, a sustainable city is a city that has a stable social, economic, and environmental dimension, he added in other words, a better understanding of the sustainability of a city will be achieved by putting together the three elements of the people, the planet, and the economy.

Highlighting that one of the dimensions of urban sustainability is sustainable economy, Seyed Mohsen Tabatabaei Mozdabadi said in fact, sustainable income is the cornerstone of sustainable urban development since sustainability of urban economy can be followed by environmental sustainability and its other aspects and conversely, a city that does not rely on sustainable income cannot meet environmental considerations and is not sustainable from a social aspect.

Referring to Arcadis studies in term of the world cities ranking based on sustainability, the secretary of IUESA said to measure sustainability in three social, economic and environmental dimensions, 20 indicators and 32 sub-indicators have been used, with information from reliable centers such as the World Bank, World Health Organization and other internationally acclaimed centers. Some of these indicators have a positive and some other negative aspects.

“Indicators of this report include education, health and safety, demographic characteristics, income equality, citizens’ finances, violence, environmental hazards, green spaces, energy, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, waste management and waste management, drinking water and sewage systems, transport infrastructure, economic development, business ease, tourism, mobility, communication and employment,” Tabatabaei went on to say.

Saying that according to the report, the world’s first 10 sustainable cities include Zurich, Singapore, Stockholm, Vienna, London, Frankfurt, Seoul, Hamburg, Prague and Munich, he added sustainable income status in these cities can be a good indicator of the role of income in sustainable urban development. As you can see, eight of these cities are located in Europe.

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