What Does Urban Sustainability Mean? An Overview of Studies from 10 Countries

Sustainability has been driving many aspects of urban planning since its conception. Urban areas are constantly transforming and evolving, and so does the approaches to urban sustainability. The meaning of urban and environmental sustainability differs from country to country, depending upon the resources, economy, disasters, etc. Countries try to redefine, contextualize, and modify approaches and deal with situations and optimize resource utilization, so that urban areas a sustainable. Unfortunately, little research is carried out to understand the concepts that dominate the field of sustainability in different countries when it comes to urban and environmental sustainability. This review takes the case of 10 countries. We analyzed a total of 1707 studies from Scopus across the world, published between the years 1990 and 2020. A bibliometric investigation is used to analyze both worldwide and country-wise decadal studies (1990–2000, 2000–2010, and 2010–2020). The worldwide data show that the top research topic in the decade 2010–2020 is landscape (frequency = 742), followed by waste, energy consumption, agriculture, and climate. Results reveal that sustainability aspects although researched in variety, are strongly interlinked. The highest links are found with ‘waste’ (3290). This study presents worldwide urban sustainability efforts briefly.