City sustainable governance and city marketing monitoring system: a meta-analysis

Abstract

According to the maxim “you can only manage what you can measure” so the “explosion of interest in the quality of governance is driving an explosive growth in the use of governance indicators” (Arndt and Oman, 2006, p.11). The author suggests the adoption of an integrated approach (Braun, 2008) in order to measure the most relevant indicators resulting from the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) adopted by the UN member states in the year 2000 and the “Right to the city” paradigm, the inclusive and sustainable city model. This paper develops a meta-analysis of city governance indicators systems and aims to discuss the role of strategic planning and territorial marketing adding a new dimension or category (UN-Habitat, 2010): the city marketing/branding indicators system.