Abstract
There exist various factors influencing the sustainability of urban development. This paper attempts to establish a simplified dynamic structural equation model in order to capture complex cause-effect relationships existing in the measurement of sustainability over time, considering data availability in developing countries. Dynamic evaluation is realized by introducing the concept of state dependence and latent variables are introduced to represent indicators of urban sustainability, i.e., transportation, land use and energy consumption in this study. Then, an extensive set of land use, transportation and energy data, collected from 46 cities in developed and developing countries at three different points in time (1970, 80 and 90), is adopted. Model estimation results suggest the validity of the resultant model. Moreover, it is also confirmed that transport supply policies supporting economic activities were the main factors determining energy consumptions.
