Indicators of sustainable urban development: A review of urban regeneration projects in Karachi, Pakistan

The notion of sustainability is widely used from micro to macro scale studies but only few approaches deal with its measurement. Increased global interest in sustainability has triggered attention in indicators as a means of achieving a more sustainable world. Although the search for indicators has led to the development of criteria for good indicators, it has also been dominated by scientific elites. After the implementation of new devolution plan, last six years have seen significant changes in the mega city of Karachi, Pakistan; both in terms of environment and physical landscape. Recent modifications in the landscape of this mega city has produced diversified impacts on the dwellers who have to suffered major problems in shape of poor air and noise quality, ultimately destructing the human as well overall ecological health. The concept of urban renewal has been legitimately applied but the impact assessment of interim effects has not been conducted. In this paper, a set of indicators have been developed which could be useful for the interim evaluation of the alleged urban regeneration process. An attempt is also made to answer the question about the possible involvement of the common public as the evaluator during the urban development activities. Mostly, these questions are recommended to be asked more objectively for the quantitative analyses. The approach proved to be quite appropriate for achieving sustainability where the people’s choices and satisfaction has been taken into consideration.