Methodology for leading indicators on sustainable regional development

Abstract

This research depicts an exploratory initiative focused on treating data to create score and rank indicators of sustainability that can be used to monitor sustainable regional development in metropolitan regions. In order to characterize, classify, and predict the conditions that might lead to the sustainable regional development of cities in a metropolitan area, the study of municipalities in the Baixada Fluminense (region neighboring the city of Rio de Janeiro) was adopted as a reference. The operational assumption for constructing and handling the variables took into account the existence of a legal framework, proposed by the government institute in charge of national research and socioeconomic data surveys, thereby establishing the parameters for the leading indicators required to characterize the conditions needed to achieve different development levels. Based on a series of secondary data, available in binary format for the year 2009 and obtained from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) Municipal Database (BDM), the statistical methods used in this paper indicated a high level of accuracy in the “mashing-up” constructs (Cronbach’s Alpha equivalent to 0.824). They also showed the existence of different hierarchical clusters and functions able to classify the typology of municipalities based on selected leading indicators and 87.8% correspondence in the classification of observations. According to the purposes of this study, namely to discover a framework for measuring, discussing, and producing policies for sustainable development, some findings show that it is possible to create simple methods to deal with the complexity of sustainable regional development: the creation of types and hierarchies favors the development of policies focused on the comparison and alignment of local realities.