Urban Big Data and Sustainable Development Goals: Challenges and Opportunities

Ali Kharrazi, Hua Qin and Yi Zhang
Additional contact information
Ali Kharrazi: Graduate School of Public Policy, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
Hua Qin: Division of Applied Social Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
Yi Zhang: Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, China

Sustainability, 2016, vol. 8, issue 12, 1-6

Abstract: Cities are perhaps one of the most challenging and yet enabling arenas for sustainable development goals. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) emphasize the need to monitor each goal through objective targets and indicators based on common denominators in the ability of countries to collect and maintain relevant standardized data. While this approach is aimed at harmonizing the SDGs at the national level, it presents unique challenges and opportunities for the development of innovative urban-level metrics through big data innovations. In this article, we make the case for advancing more innovative targets and indicators relevant to the SDGs through the emergence of urban big data. We believe that urban policy-makers are faced with unique opportunities to develop, experiment, and advance big data practices relevant to sustainable development. This can be achieved by situating the application of big data innovations through developing mayoral institutions for the governance of urban big data, advancing the culture and common skill sets for applying urban big data, and investing in specialized research and education programs.

Keywords: urban big data; sustainable development goals; big data public policy; SDG targets and indicators; big data research and education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/12/1293/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/12/1293/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:8:y:2016:i:12:p:1293-:d:84780

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().