Urban Cluster-Based Sustainability Assessment of an Indian City: Case of Nagpur

Most of the urban sustainability studies consider a city as a single entity to evaluate their sustainability performance. Indian cities are heterogeneous and a collage of many diverse entities that have a variety of built characteristics, termed as spatial clusters in this paper. The study presented in this paper aims at assessing sustainability of an Indian city at an appropriate microscale of clusters, a basic spatial unit, wherein the evaluation can be used as a diagnostic tool for improving sustainability. It identifies indicators within various sustainability domains and uses an indicator-based assessment method. Identification and categorization of various cluster typologies is done on the basis of morphology, development patterns, location, and occupants' income range in Nagpur. Based on household survey data, performance of each cluster and cluster typology is compared, which helps in identifying and prioritizing issues and clusters for improvement. The paper contributes toward developing a framework of assessment that provides guidance to measure sustainability at a microscale of a cluster and also at a scale of a city cumulatively, under each domain. (C) 2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.