Developing context-sensitive livability indicators for transportation planning: a measurement framework
Highlights
► Community livability concepts are receiving new emphases in transportation planning. ► This paper provides a framework for constructing quantitative livability indicators. ► We critically review indicator construction methods based on multicriteria analysis. ► We discuss methods for capturing diverse stakeholder perspectives and geographic context. ► We also discuss strategies for integrating indicators into transportation planning.
Introduction
The last two decades have witnessed a surge of interest in enhancing the livability of communities, and a growing commitment by governments to provide the framework, tools and data to plan and build livable communities. Although European governments have been proactive with respect to livability and sustainability plans (see, e.g., EU, 2010), until recently, efforts in the United States have been mostly citizen-organized in response to local and regional issues (Deakin, 2002, NRC (National Research Council), 2002). This changed substantially in 2009 when the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of Transportation (DOT) formed a partnership to coordinate federal housing, transportation, and other infrastructure investments with the goal of creating more livable and sustainable communities. The Partnership for Sustainable Communities intends to identify policy and investment strategies that encourage safe, reliable and economical transportation choices, promote equitable and affordable housing, enhance economic competitiveness, support community revitalization and promote healthy, safe and walkable neighborhoods in rural, urban or suburban settings.
A key research need identified in the Partnership for Sustainable Communities is the development of livability measures and tools. The agreement calls for efforts to research, evaluate and recommend analytical measures that reflect the livability of communities, neighborhoods, and metropolitan areas. The intent is to use indices to benchmark existing conditions, measure progress and improve accountability in integrated planning efforts to enhance community livability. HUD, DOT, and EPA also intend to develop incentives to encourage communities to implement, use, and publicize the indices (USDOT, 2009).
Livability indices are not new: quality of life, and sustainability measures and rankings include scientifically-based policy measures such as the ecological footprint (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996) and the human development index (UNDP, 1990) and measures of inequality such as the Gini coefficient (Garner, 1993, Yitzhaki, 1979). However, new policy initiatives imply a greater emphasis on indicators to guide planning and investment decisions. These indices should be carefully constructed given these functional requirements. In particular, livability and sustainability indicators should be internally consistent or coherent with respect to measurement assumptions, transparent in the sense that they are easily understood and interpreted, and externally valid with respect to capturing all relevant aspects of the concepts.
This paper provides a measurement framework for developing and applying livability indices in transportation planning. With respect to internal consistency and transparency, we critically review the indicator construction process, focusing the discussion on issues relevant to transportation planning. With respect to external validity, we discuss multicriteria analysis (MCA): a set of techniques for eliciting preference structures in multiattribute decision-making (Jankowski, 1995, Nijkamp et al., 1990). We also discuss techniques that allow indicators to capture the local context more fully. These include techniques that explicitly maintain stakeholder perspectives, and spatial analytic tools that can model spatial entities and relationships at varying levels of aggregation. We also discuss spatial decision support systems and the emerging concept of Geodesign as a framework for organizing these tools and technologies as well as integrating livability indicators into the broader planning process.
Although we discuss conceptualizations of livability, we do not intend to provide definitions of livability beyond identifying features that are relevant for the indicator construction process. We also do not intend to suggest what livability data should or should not be collected. In fact, it is often a good idea to collect data beyond the requirements for indicator construction: these can be used for “drilling-down” to derive additional detail or auxiliary information.
The next section of this paper provides background on defining livability, livability and transportation planning, indicators in policy and planning, and indicators for multidimensional concepts. After this background, the following section addresses issues associated with developing internally consistent and transparent indicators. Specifically, Section 3 provides a critical review of how to construct a composite index that summarizes a multidimensional concept such as livability, paying special attention to issues that are relevant to transportation. Section 4 discusses methods for developing externally valid indicators through capturing local context. These methods include the multiactor multicriteria analysis (MAMCA), spatial analytical tools, spatial decision support systems and the Geodesign process for organizing tools and technologies as well as incorporating livability indicators into the broader planning process. Section 5 concludes the paper with summary comments and directions for further research and application.
Although this paper focuses on livability measurement, we draw heavily from the literature on sustainability indicator construction since this latter problem is well-studied and has a mature body of theory and methodology with an admirable degree of rigor. Since sustainability and livability are closely related (arguably, the only difference is time scale; Litman, 2010), lessons learned over four decades of sustainability measurement and accounting can provide valuable insights to the problem of livability indicator construction (as well as combined livability/sustainability indicators). Consequently, we use the term “livability” generically, although we use the term “sustainability” for references to that specific concept.
Section snippets
Defining (urban) livability
A scan of the literature and the web suggests few precise and consistent definitions of urban livability. Many authors and commentators point to ideal city types as examples of livable communities. These ideal communities are typically moderately dense, diverse, walkable, safe, affordable, accessible and well-served by public transit systems; in other words, the qualities usually associated with New Urbanist and smart growth principals (Banister, 2008). For example, the Partnership for
Constructing consistent and transparent composite indicators
There are two main strategies for constructing CIs (Zhou and Ang, 2008). The indirect approach involves normalizing the individual indicators, assigning weights reflecting their relative importance, and then combining the weighted normalized variables to derive a synthetic composite indicator. This process often involves methods from multicriteria analysis (MCA). MCA is a set of techniques for identifying choice alternatives satisfying the objectives of the parties involved in a multi-attribute
External validity: adapting indicators to local context
The techniques discussed previously in this paper are methods for constructing livability indicators that are coherent, transparent and externally valid. Following the principles of good indicator construction leads to indicators that are internally consistent and transparent. MCA techniques allow for external input regarding indicators and relative importance weights. While this is sufficient for many indicator applications such as ranking countries or cities based on livability or
Conclusion
New emphases on livability and sustainability are creating demands for measuring and applying these concepts in transportation planning. These are complex, multidimensional concepts that require careful measurement if they to be applied appropriately in plan evaluation and benchmarking. This paper provided a framework for constructing and applying quantitative livability indicators. We critically reviewed principles of constructing indicators to describe multidimensional concepts such as
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