Towards a social progress index for urban liveability, productivity, and sustainability

Abstract

Australian Urban Policy: Chapter 16

Over the past three decades Australia has experienced enviable and unprecedented economic growth, yet our social progress has not kept pace. Social progress is key if we are to create urban areas for the future that are liveable, productive, and sustainable.

This chapter examines social progress as a concept, what it means for helping to understand and address social inequities, how we are going as a country, and why tracking and focusing on it at local, state, national, and international levels are important for urban policy now and into the future. The social progress index is suggested as a suitable instrument for operationalising these imperatives.

Recognising the limits of considering only economic measures as indicators of progress, the SPI was first used in 2013 as a complementary indicator for development and progress within society. The nonprofit Social Progress Imperative defines social progress as: “the capacity of a society to meet the basic human needs of its citizens, establish the building blocks that allow citizens and communities to enhance and sustain the quality of their lives, and create the conditions for all individuals to reach their full potential.” (Stern et al. 2018: 3)