Sustainable City Development: A Brazilian Goal Plan in Practice

Abstract

By 2050, two-thirds of all humanity will live in urban areas; as a result, sustainable development will become fundamental for the management of cities. Making cities sustainable means creating opportunities, safe and affordable housing, and building economic and resilient societies. To achieve sustainable development, it is crucial to harmonize three core elements: economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection. These components are intertwined and fundamental to the well-being of individuals and societies. This research portrays the Municipal Goals Plan as a strategy foreseen in the Sustainable Cities Program, in view of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, held in Brazil in 2012 and known as Rio +20. The study has a descriptive exploratory character, the use of a case study of the municipality of Antônio Prado, located in southern Brazil, was chosen as a technical procedure testing, and describes how a small municipality could develop and apply the Municipal Goals Plan, based on the objectives of sustainable development(SDG). The results displayed in 42 months of Management (2017-2020) were very satisfactory and actually reached 90% of the 97 actions foreseen by the work teams and this mostly due to three factors: 1) the engagement of those responsible for Administrative Management; 2) the importance of planning, at both strategic and operational levels; and 3) the commitment of the teams in the execution of the actions. These three key factors for the success of the plan triggered an effective collaborative construction work, which may be called collaborative governance.

Local Public Administration in the Process of Implementing Sustainable Development Goals

“…Previous studies have highlighted the use of smart city technology to achieve SD, which allows policymakers to use more efficient indicators in sustainability performance assessment [79]. Making cities sustainable means that employment opportunities and safe and affordable housing need to be created, as well as the fostering of societies based on economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection [90]. These components are interconnected with and fundamental to individuals and societies' well-being.…”