Assessment model of urban sustainability level: proposal to brazilian cities

Sustainability indicators allow to capture urban environment features and reveal the urban (in) sustainability, generating information that support urban public policies and the development process. Based on this evidence, the paper aims to propose a model for urban sustainability analysis, built from matrices of Ascelrad (2009). This proposal is divided into a conceptual approach, originator mark for assessing the urban space sustainability in order to consolidate the its by various stakeholders and an operational approach defining matrices, the dimensions and the themes for sustainability analysis, with their analysis criteria, indicators and operational parameters, which allow to monitor the cities sustainability, serving as a tool for guidance of urban public policies. Methodologically, this is a theoretical essay based on the literature on urban sustainability, especially urban sustainability discursive matrices. This model allows the analysis of urban sustainability given the specificities of the Brazilian urban issues; and contributes to generate subsidies for more consistent analyzes of urban problems, which through urban indicators and criteria analysis, allow a guidance to the urban development process and cities sustainability monitoring, offering support to public policies.