Comparative Study of Urban Area Growth: Determining the Key Criteria of Inner Urban Development

Urban population is steadily growing worldwide, while the number of people in Eastern Europe is decreasing. These two contradictory trends have outlined the proposal for sustainable solutions to solve civil engineering issues that are aimed at implementing the principles of sustainable development and ensuring a better quality of urban life. When considering the problem that is encountered in Eastern European countries, a multi-criteria model for sustainable urban development has been designed and focused on planning and simulating an inner urban living environment. The suggested model has disclosed the social, economic, environmental, and sustainable components of the infrastructure that are necessary for developing inner urban areas. The components have been adapted and presented in three different size territories covering Lithuanian cities and towns. The applied expert evaluation method has assisted in determining the key criteria that should be considered in order to identify the most important inner areas of urban development. It is expected that this study will extend activities that are performed in the field of improvement of sustainability engineering processes and offer guidelines for other researchers investigating the areas of inner urban development.