How governance influences the components of sustainable urban development?

The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of governance on the three linchpins of sustainable urban development (SUD): social development and inclusion, economic development, and environmental protection. This study relies on secondary data collected by UN-Habitat from 265 cities in developing countries between 2013 and 2016 for the City Prosperity Index program (CPI). The indicators used to measure the components of SUD were adopted from the CPI. The findings reveal the negative effects of governance on the social development and inclusion, and economic development components of SUD. Moreover, the results of this study demonstrate a positive effect for governance on environmental protection. As such, these findings substantially enrich the SUD literature for which there are few studies having investigated the inter-relationship among SUD components. Moreover, the findings reported here have implications in terms the sustainability of urban development. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.