A multi-criteria framework as a decision support system for urban growth management applications: Central city redevelopment

The paper introduces a decision support system based on a multi-criteria framework that integrates several socio-economic, physical planning and urban design processes recently used in the U.S. for growth management of central city redevelopment. It formalizes and operationalizes the concept of the ‘critical coalition’, i.e. user groups representative of the community's interests who share common perceived values, objectives and problems within an urban setting. This critical coalition provides the decision model with the socio-economic qualitative input to establish representative priorities and importance weights, and to provide the political base for the implementation of policy actions. The framework is applied to establish locational suitability of development or redevelopment actions within a central city. This application is illustrated with examples from a pilot study to establish the suitability of residential infill within the central business district of the City of Columbus, Ohio.