The Evaluation Research On Livable City Based On Multiplication Model And

AHP

Feng-ying YAN1, Guo-dong YUAN2, Long GE3, Huai-gang LI2

1
School of Architecture, Tianjin University, Tianjin, P.R. China
2
School of Civil Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, P.R. China
3
Tianjin Planning Buearu, Tianjin, P.R. China
Tianjin University, 92 Weijin Road, Nankai District, Tianjin, 300072, P.R. China
(fengying@tju.edu.cn, laygdzy@163.com, Ge_Long@126.com, hgliond@126.com)

Abstract-Through the systematic analysis, a conceptual
model assessing Livable city is established to revalue the
cities of China. Elements contributing to quality of livable
environmental status are carefully selected and then the
evaluation index system is established according to the
model. The weights of elements are calculated based on AHP.
In order to get more logical results, the appropriate
evaluation model—Multiplicative model is chosen to analyze.
With several Chinese cities for case study, the result shows
that the evaluation model can be regarded as a kind of
relatively scientific method in evaluating urban habitability.
Keywords-AHP, Livable city, Multiplication model
I. BACKGROUND INTRODUCTION
Livable city is one of the goals as the future
development of China. The high-speed development
period of Chinese cities will be in the recent 20 years till
the next several decades [1]. During this period there
could be a large number of urban population influxes.
With large numbers of people quickly gathered in, the
people's living environment is getting worse with
population explosion, pollution, energy shortages, traffic
congestion, housing problem and other issues that will
come out as follows. Undoubtedly, it will put forward a
higher demand to the construction of urban settlements
and thus constructing livable city becomes an essential
task for city's sustainable development. First of all, the
present situation of the urban disease should be clearly
diagnosed. Then, In order to change the situation,
effective measures must be taken before the status get
worse. So how to scientific evaluate urban habitability
becomes more and more important. This is just the
background of this research.
Livable city has a strong influence on the development
and construction of Chinese cities as a new concept [2].
From the beginning of 20th century, lots of experts and
scholars have made profound researches on the
construction of livable city. They established different
evaluation systems by different indexes and methods.
Some people just analyze cities and make an order with
the popular method of AHP for synthetic evaluation.
Foundation Item: The Index System Research on Constructing
Ecological and Livable Highland of Tianjin (2010-KJB-17)
But it isn’t suitable, as the elements constructing the
livable city are independent between each other in the
AHP [3] [4] [5]. In fact, the elements formed a big system
and they
can't be separated alone [6]. There are some other
methods, such as Grey Correlation Method [7], Principal
Component Analysis [8] and so on [9]. Each assessment
system has its own characteristics. Some methods are too
simple, and the content of assessment is not
comprehensive. Some other methods are overly complex,
and the operability is not maneuverable.
Based on the considerations above, the generalized
conceptual model of the livable city is carried out in this
paper. The various elements are carefully selected according
to the model. Then an evaluation index system for every
element is built based on the theoretical framework
considering the connotation of the livable city. The various
elements’ weights can be calculated based on the AHP.
Finally, the multiplicative model is an ideal choice to value
the development of the city. In this way, the various elements
have different influence on livable city. The results will
provide basic support and reference to government
management in urban planning and meet people’s growing
demand for environment. Then effective measures promoting
the city's sustainable development will be proposed. These
are the main content of this study.
II. CONCEPTUAL MODEL
Livable city is a systematic concept and it is an integral
whole made up by different links. Each link contacts each
other mutually restricted and inseparable [10]. At the
same time, the city’s ecology and habitability are
capability indexes; there isn’t a direct way to measure
them. The external performance indicators are the suitable
measurement when the generalized conceptual model is
chosen to analyze. The generalized conceptual model of
the livable city is based on the understanding of the city’s
evolution process. Fig. 1 depicts the conceptual model of
the ecological and livable city, and explains the logic
relation of city’s evolution. In this model, the unity of four
elements, including natural environment, cultural and
education, economic foundation and infrastructure
construction, makes a great contribution to the sustainable

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978-1-61284-449-7/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE

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development of the city. The livable city is the result of
these elements’ combined action. The calculation formula
is shown below:
Y=f (N, C, E, I). (1)
Where, N: the natural environment; C: the culture and
education; E: the economic basis; I: the infrastructure
construction.
Fig. 1 The components of livable city
Among the four main links, pleasant natural
environment including the waste treatment is the premise
condition of habitability and it is the foundation of the
original city. Nowadays, people pay more attention to the
pleasant natural environment. Human activity makes
serious damage to the natural environment and the
primitive nature has become more and more valuable. In
order to pursue the return of natural living environment,
people will regularly go to the pleasant environment for
vacation after work. Not only the natural environment is
the production material supporting human activities, but
also itself has become a luxury enjoyment. The natural
environment supporting livable city has reached an
unprecedented level in choosing which places to live in
[10].
The culture connotation is the city’s ID card; it
determines the identification and evaluation of the
subjective aspect. Each City should have its own local
culture and temperament. A lot of cultural relics have
been destroyed with the development of society and it has
caused serious lack of regional culture. City managers
misunderstand the development of city and they just
easily copy each other. Then cities look the same. So
more attention should be paid on the culture, and more
attention should be paid to the education of the locals.
Education plays an important role in transferring the local
culture from generation to generation.
The economic basis is an important condition to the
livable city, Economic development becomes more and
more rapid in recent years, and it is necessary. Have a
solid economic foundation doesn't mean the city will be
livable, but it surely won’t be livable without a solid
economic foundation. So the economic construction is
always the theme of the city.
The infrastructure construction reflects the level of the
city's convenience. The better the infrastructure is, the
ﾧ
better the urban habitability is. With the development of
urban infrastructure construction, it will provide the
material to guarantee the urbanization. However,
sometimes infrastructure construction can also become
the bottleneck of urbanization. What’s more, it is an
important judgment of boosting economic development.
Strengthening the construction of urban infrastructure
system and improving the popularization and utilization
are targets what we've been hardly working for.
III. INDEX AND MODEL
A. Index selection principles
Livable city has rich connotation and the expression of
mode is various. So it is the key point how to be scientific
and reasonable to measure livable city. The index should
be representative. The author supposes that the following
principles are needed to be seriously taken into
consideration.
First of all, the index of ecology and habitability should
have enough theoretical basis, called theorization. It
defined from the connotation and essence; otherwise, it is
difficult to be comprehensive and systematical when
judging the level of habitability.
Secondly, the design of the index must reflect the state
and trends of city development completely, called
comprehensiveness. Based on the considerations above,
ecology and habitability of the city can't take a single
index to evaluate, so that we should choose several
indexes from all aspects to describe it. There are two
forms to evaluate the ecology and habitability by several
indexes: one is composed by several indexes, the index
system evaluates city from different angles; the other is
the system structure, it forms a quantitative model, giving
comprehensive values. The latter approach is taken in this
paper.
Thirdly, the index, in the time and space, Should have
comparative analysis and function judgment; called
comparability. It is determined by the purpose of the
index.
Last but not least, the data needed for the index
calculation should be facilitated to investigate and the
process to get the data should be more practical; called
maneuverability. Otherwise it will lose practical value;
even if the index is established correspond with other
principles.
B. Index selection
Habitability environment is a complex system of people,
environment, society, economy, culture, climate, security
and so on [11]. The analysis should be based on the
construction of ecological and livable environment, so the
index should be clear. This paper puts forward the livable
environment evaluation index system (see TABLE 1)
according to the principles of theorization,
comprehensiveness, comparability and maneuverability in
choosing the elements. In this way, the multidimensional
model will naturally provide the picture that fully reflects
the city reality.
TABLE 1
INDEX SYSTEM
Index Type Index Name
Coverage Rate of Afforestation
in Developed Area
Innocuous Disposal Rate of
Natural Garbage
Rate of Comprehensive
Environment(N)
Utilization of Industrial Waste
Residue
Disposal Rate of Residential
Waste Water
Number of Theatres per 10000
Persons in City
Culture and Number of public library books
per 100 Persons
Education(C) Number of High Student
Enrollment per 100 Persons
Number of Ordinary University
Full-time Teachers
Per Capita GDP
Economic Basis(E) The rate of economy growth
the proportion of the tertiary in
GDP
Per Capita Area of Paved
Roads
Number of Public
Transportations Vehicles per
Infrastructure 10000 Persons in City
Per Capita Water Consumption
Construction(I) for Living of Urban
Households
Per Capita Electric
Consumption for Living
Per 100 Urban Households
Personal Computers
C. Multiplication model
1) Variable Correlation Analysis: The multiplication
evaluation model is suitable for the index which has
strong relevance among them [3]. Through the analysis of
the natural environment, the culture and education, the
economic basis, the infrastructure construction with the
Pearson Correlation Coefficient, the result shows that the
correlation among them is very close in the TABLE 2.
TABLE 2
PEARSON CORRELATIONS
N C
2) Determination of the variable weight: The
multiplicative model is chosen to evaluate livable city in
this paper. The four elements have different influence on
the city, so they should be given different weights. They
are inextricably linked to each other and the interaction
Unit
between the internal system and external environment is
very strong. A qualitative and quantitative method is used
% to figure out this complex system. For this, AHP is a very
effective method.
%
% AHP method was invited by T.I.Saaty in 1970[12]. The
basic idea is that through the binary comparison, the
relative importance of each factor is determined. The total
order about the relative importance would be confirmed
%
with the integrated judgment. In order to be more
unit scientific and democratic, there are always multiple
decision-makers (i.e. experts) or decision-making
volume departments to participate to make the decision for a
person
complex system. According to the same standards, we
will get judgment matrix when experts are consulted.
person Then the procedure is divided into the following steps[7]:
specific issues; establishing hierarchy (see TABLE
Yuan 3); scaling; construction judgments matrix; sort
%
level calculation and consistency test, to determine the
% weights.
In the step of establishing hierarchy, each two factors
square that subordinates to (or influences) the level above are
meter compared, then quantify factors in accordance with the
standard prescriptive scale to make a matrix, that is judgments
vehicles matrix. Data in judgments matrix of various elements are
Ton 1-9 scale in general, mainly through expert assessment or
by history (experience) data.
KWH
TABLE 3
platform THE SIGNIFICANCE OF 1-9 SCALE
Scale( aij ) Meaning
1 the impact of Ci and Cj is of the same
3 the impact of Ci is a bit stronger than Cj
5 the impact of Ci is stronger than Cj
7 the impact of Ci is obviously stronger than Cj
9 the impact of Ci is absolutely stronger than Cj
1,4,6,8 is median between above
1 ,1/ 2-1/ 9 on the contrary
E I

N 1 Each two indicators in the first level is compared

C -0.0033
E -0.5720
I -0.0435
1
according to their influence to the livable environment
evaluation, also expert assessment is consulted, the
relative importance is determined and corresponding scale
0.2728 1 is given. The judgment matrix of the factors is constructed
in the first level as follows (see TABLE 4).
0.2728 0.3443 1

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 TABLE 4 the infrastructure construction and the two elements’ score
JUDGMENT MATRIXES will be very low. At the same time, Infrastructure also
affects economic development and the relationship
N C E I between them is a positive correlation. Finally it affects
N 1 3 5 7 the habitability of city. Cultural and education is an
C 3 1 2 1/3 independence index, and the data relevant to how much
the attention has been paid to the education. Through the
E 5 2 1 5 data above, Sometimes you will find that the
underdeveloped areas’ score is higher than developed area
I 7 1/3 5 1
in cultural and education, such as Wuhan and Xi’an. It
shows that these cities keep their own characteristics in
urban planning.
TABLE 5
The eigenvector of the judgment matrix is Calculated CASE
as follows: the maximal eigenvalue is max =4.2302,
normalize the eigenvector W of the maximal eigenvalue, CITY N E C I Y RANK
W= (w1, w2, w3, w4,) = (0.4233, 0.2000, 0.2210, 0.1557). Tianjin 11.194 10.242 9.013 8.467 38.918 5
Test the consistency of the judgment matrix as follows: Dalian 11.605 11.662 6.133 7.761 37.162 6
CI= max 1 = 4.2302 1 =0.07673, then RI=0.89,
Shanghai 10.280 12.998 17.507 13.819 54.605 2
n 1 4 1
CI 0.07673 Ningbo 11.166 11.796 5.504 8.891 37.358 6
CR= = =0.0862 0.1 Accordingly, the
RI 0.89 Xiamen 11.450 12.144 14.523 10.617 48.736 3
consistency of the judgment matrix could be acceptable.
Wuhan 11.008 10.145 15.482 9.349 45.985 4
3) Multiplication Model Design:
n
Shenzhen 11.222 13.928 12.466 26.684 64.301 1
Yxiwi . i=1, 2, 3…, n (2)
i=1
Chengdu 11.529 8.704 8.279 8.176 36.689 7
Where xi is the observation, wi is the weight of the
Xi’an 10.543 8.377 11.089 6.231 36.241 8
index, n is the number of index. Y is the total points.
Using (2), we put elements and indicators into the formula
The composite index of the rank will be more
and the expression is this: acceptable. Because it considered all factors of urban.
Y N w1 C w2 E w3 I w4 . (3) From the table, the rank of the ecological and livable city
is Shenzhen, Shanghai, Xiamen, Wuhan, Tianjin, Ningbo,
Chengdu and Xi’an. Shenzhen gets the highest score and
IV. CASE STUDY it is in the first group. The scores of various elements are
more balanced and higher. In the second group, there are
Based on the analysis above, nine cities are chosen to Shanghai, Xiamen and Wuhan. Some elements of the
analyze. They are Tianjin, Dalian, Shanghai, Ningbo, score are relatively high, while the other elements of the
Xiamen, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Chengdu and Xi’an. The score are relatively low among them. In the last group,
multiplication model is constructed to evaluate these there are Tianjin, Ningbo, Chengdu and Xi’an.
cities with the data from the “China urban statistical Infrastructure Construction has become the "bottleneck”
yearbook in 2008”. The evaluation results are shown in in the rank of the composite index among these cities.
the TABLE 5.
In the TABLE 5, we obviously find that each city has
V. CONCLUSION
paid much attention to the construction of ecological
environment, even though the urban economy of some
cities is not so developed. Ecological environment affects Firstly, the conceptual model is established based on
the ecology of the city and China has advocated the the systematic analysis and connotation study. Secondly,
strategy of sustainable development in the process of according to the characteristics of the elements, the
development. That is the reason why their score are very evaluation indexes are carefully selected. Thirdly, the
weights are calculated of the four elements by analytic
similar. However, the development of the economic isn’t
balanced in each region compared with natural hierarchy process of group decision making. After these
environment, and the coastal area is richer than the works, the multiplication evaluation model is built up and
mainland according to these data. Then it directly affected it has analyzed nine cities according to the index value in

ﾧ
the database. The results are reasonable and acceptable.
Thus this evaluation method and the conclusions can be
provided scientific basis for the practical work and
decision-making.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
mining city a case of panzhihua”. Presented at 2009
Urban Remote Sensing Joint Event, China, Shanghai, 2009
[12] Yanqing Wang, Xiaofei Xu, Li Lei and Jianzheng Wang
“An AHP-based evaluation index system of coding
standards” Presented at 2008 International Conference on
Computer Science and Software Engineering, China,
Wuhan, 2008

This work has been supported by the Program of “the

index system research on constructing ecological and
livable highland of Tianjin”; Thanks for the great help my
tutor Feng-ying Yan. And also, thanks for the members of
the group.

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