The assessment of sustainable urban development

This paper describes the outcomes of a survey of assessment methods for sustainable urban development (SUD) undertaken by an international network called BEQUEST. It addresses aspects of good practice in terms of SUD, explores the range of methods available and explains the classification used in the directory of methods included in the BEQUEST Toolkit available on the web. An exercise undertaken to map the range of assessment methods to the various sustainability issues and development activities is described. The strengths and weakness and other deficiencies in current forms of sustainability assessment are explored. The key gaps in sustainability assessment are identified for further research and the importance of greater integration in assessment and evaluation, across professional and subject boundaries is emphasized.