- Sustainability Appraisal of Development Trends in the Urban Fringe: an MCA approach    842 kb by    Kashem, Md. Shakil Bin & Hafiz, Roxana | shakil_kashem@urp.buet.ac.bd, shakilkashem@yahoo.com    Short Outline This paper proposes a technique for appraising sustainability of development trends in an urban fringe area. It uses a Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) approach that encompasses all the spheres of the concept of sustainability at the local level. Abstract The issue of ‘Sustainable Development’ or ‘Sustainability’ has been gaining momentum for the past few decades when technological advancement and rapid population growth are exerting enormous stress on the limited natural resource base of the earth. For achieving a safe and livable human settlement on this earth, the issue of sustainable development is now widely discussed all over the world. Many tools and techniques are being developed for appraising sustainability both at the local and the global levels. This paper proposes a mechanism to appraise sustainability using Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) at the local level in an urban fringe. It selected the north-eastern fringe area of Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh to appraise the sustainability of the development trends there. Three main spheres of sustainable development, i.e. environmental, social and economical sustainability were taken as Primary Tier Criteria (PTC). Under these PTC 28 Secondary Tier Criteria (STC) were selected. These STC were weighted using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) under their respective PTC. Questionnaire survey of the local residents along with field survey in the study area and analysis of secondary data were used to assign each of the STC with a Sustainability Impact Value (SIV). Two sample sites within the study area (one in the inner fringe and another in the outer fringe) were selected for determining the overall sustainability level of the area. This sustainability level was measured in the form of Generic Sustainability Level (GSL). The result shows that, the study fringe area is in a negative state of sustainability mainly due to its deteriorated environmental condition through unplanned and ill-planned development works there. Through analysis of the results, this study proposes some action that would promote sustainability in the whole study fringe area. Keywords Sustainable development, Urban fringe, Multi-Criteria Analysis Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2006: Cities between Integration and Disintegration   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper