Green Growth in Cities
This report synthesises the findings from six case studies of urban green growth policies, four at city level (Paris, Chicago, Stockholm, Kitakyushu) and two at the national level (China, Korea). It offers a definition of urban green growth and a framework for analysing how it might play out in different types of cities. It demonstrates the importance of urban policies for achieving national environmental policy goals and discusses the increased efficiency of policy intervention at the urban level. It identifies urban activities to reduce environmental impact that are most likely to contribute to the policy priorities of job creation, urban attractiveness, metro-regional supply of green products and services, and increased urban land values. It also provides guidance on addressing potential financing and governance challenges that may arise in pursuing urban green growth. Finally, the report offers a preliminary proposal for how green growth in cities could be measured.
Measuring green growth in cities
This annex presents an overview of the indicators currently available to inform green growth policies in cities.
The case studies informing this report have aimed to increase urban policy makers’ understanding of which green policies are most likely to contribute to employment growth, urban attractiveness, the local production of green goods and services, and urban land values. However, this report stops short of assessing specific urban green growth policies’ impact on economic growth or the environment, as the data to conduct such an assessment still do not exist. This is itself a major problem for urban policy makers: many cities seeking to foster green growth lack reliable, valid metrics for measuring their progress.