Given existing or easily compiled data, what are appropriate indicators of urban environmental quality/trends in the interest of resource allocation, prioritization, or agenda setting?

This study describes a framework for developing urban environmental indicators. Several existing indicator frameworks are discussed and evaluated. Criteria are identified in order to guide the development of indicators that reflect real trends in underlying conditions, are analytically sound, and are directly related to the spatial and temporal scales, as well as the audience or policy purposes for which they are to be used. Several city indicators and "sustainable city" projects are compared in order to identify key issues in applying indicators to a city environment. Drawing on this extensive body of indicator and urban environment work, three model indicators were defined and applied to Providence.

The indicators applied to Providence place less emphasis on addressing one audience or program area, and more emphasis on capturing a subset of measures of the physical landscape, human health, and the distribution of potentially dangerous commercial activities in an urban area. Impervious surface was measured as "percent of land area" and "acres per capita as functions of the distance from downtown Providence over the last ten years". It was found that Providence has indeed "sprawled" during that period, as the natural landscape away from the city has been converted to impervious surface at a high rate. The summertime effects of ozone on human health were measured by the average number of cases of respiratory or cardiovascular distress admitted to hospitals in Providence. A short period of available data limits the ability to draw conclusions about trends, but suggests that the rates have been declining in recent years, and the indicator should continue to be followed. The relationship between socio-economic variables and the distribution of potential sources of air toxics were used as a measure of environmental justice within the city. It was found that the number of sites per square mile was significantly higher in areas of the city below the median income and in areas where the number of non-english speaking people is above the citywide median.