3. An Assessment Indicator System and a Comprehensive Index for Sustainable City

Apart from qualitative description, the most important method we used to analyze and assess the development level toward a sustainable city was quantitative analysis (Sustainable Development Strategy Study Group 2003). The quantitative analysis seeks and sets up a set of measures that can quantify the development level toward a sustainable city and answer the questions that people are generally concerned about. For example: What is the level and trend of sustainable city construction of this specific city? How can the city’s ranking be defined compared with the sustainable city construction level of other cities? What are the weak points and key issues in the sustainable city construction processes of this specific city? What are the prioritized areas and paths to enhance or improve the sustainable city construction level of this specific city? (Kuik and Verbruggen 1991; Opschoor 1992). We measured or assessed the sustainable city construction level precisely to answer questions.