The triad of social sustainability: Defining and measuring social sustainability of urban neighbourhoods

Abstract

Despite recent advances in social sustainability discourse, there is a dearth of working definitions and evaluation frameworks regarding measuring social sustainability of neighbourhoods for research, practice, and policy purposes. Building on the qualitative meta-analysis of relevant resources, this article proposes the triad of social sustainability consisting of three pillars of neighbourhood, neighbouring, and neighbours, as a conceptual framework for understanding and measuring social sustainability of neighbourhoods. It introduces relevant indicators for each pillar, suggests advanced techniques for measuring them, and incorporates them into an integrated framework. At the end, significant research and policy implications of the proposed framework are discussed.