THE JUSTICE OF URBAN CHANGE: ASSESSING THE SUSTAINABILITY AND DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE OF URBAN CHANGE USING AN INTEGRATED URBAN MODEL

Abstract

<p>The importance of citizen’s psychological need for community, amenities, and the feeling of equitable distribution of the varied impacts from urban change are gaining recognition as important factors in evaluating sustainable urban change. The inclusion of indicators that capture the equitable distribution of urban change impacts are a rare addition to the vast list of sustainability indicator sets available to researchers. Rarer still is the application of Integrated Urban Models (IUMs) and sustainability indicators in assessing the sustainability of land use and transportation policies which impact not only the form and structure of cities, but also the health and wellbeing of the city residents. Using three land use scenarios relevant to the study area: the City of Hamilton, scenarios which simulate alternative residential density patterns, the suburbanization of employment and the closure of elementary and secondary schools are projected into the medium term future using an integrated GIS-based model for simulating the consequences of demographic changes and population ageing on transportation (IMPACT), a sustainability indicator module and a set of indicators measuring the degree to which the urban change is just. The sustainability values generated from the use of IMPACT and SUSTAIN offer valuable insight to the literature related to each scenario. More importantly, the justice indicators add value information as to the impact of urban change on vulnerable population groups. The combination of IMPACT and SUSTAIN offers new avenue and method for future research on the sustainability of urban change.</p>