A New Evaluation Method Applying Sustainability and Climate Change Concepts: The Case of Planning New York City 2030

A review of planning literature shows that there is a lack of a multifaceted evaluation framework that helps assessing the contribution of urban and community plans to sustainability and climate change in particular. This paper proposes a new conceptual framework for evaluating urban plans that aim to achieve sustainability and climate change objectives. Then it use it to evaluate the recent master plan for the city of New York: PlaNYC 2030. The conceptual framework is based on ten concepts. Each concept is composed of several criteria of evaluation. These concepts are: the concept of ethical paradox; the concept of equity; the concept of natural capital; the utopian concept; the concept of eco-energy; the concept of eco-form; the eco-nomics concept; the integrative concept; the concept of global agenda; the concept of consumption practices. The paper concludes with an application of the conceptual framework for evaluation on the recent plan of the city of New York, PlaNYC 2030, which includes the plan itself: “A Greener, Greater New York” (2007). The findings suggest that PlaNYC 2030 only partially addresses the concepts of sustainability and climate change. Moreover, it suggests some practical steps that the NY Plan could adopt in order to improve its sustainability level. Practically, the proposed matrix for evaluation appears to be an easy-to-grasp evaluation method, and should be easily understood and applied by scholars, practitioners, and policy makers.