Indicator 11.a.1 Number of countries that have national urban policies or regional development plans that (a) respond to population dynamics; (b) ensure balanced territorial development; and (c) increase local fiscal space

Indicator 11.a.1: Proportion of population living in cities that implement urban and regional development plans integrating population projections and resource needs

Many urban related SDGs require global monitoring with the ‘city’ as the unit of analysis. In order to monitor the urban SDGs in particular, it is necessary to agree on a global/common definition of what constitutes a ‘city’. A standard city definition will assist in the monitoring of the SDGs by ensuring that the study areas for the spatial urban SDGs are standardized and easily reproducible, and will add clarity to the methodologies and approaches to the collection of data to support the land and rural related indicators. UN-Habitat in collaboration with New York University and the Joint Research Centre - European Commission has adopted two definitions of cities.

The definitions are:

a) City defined by the limit of its built-up area -New York University The Built-up area’ of a city is defined as the contiguous area occupied by buildings and other impervious surfaces including the urban vacant areas in and around them but excluding rural areas beyond the urban fringe.

b) Degree of Urbanization (DEGURBA) -European Commission-JRC Degree of urbanization is defined as the classification of local administrative units’ level 2 or communes into three types: Cities (densely populated), towns or suburbs (intermediate density) and rural areas (thinly populated areas) based on the share of the local population living in urban clusters and in urban centers.

Number/dimensionless

X (S) =100 X - Min(X ) Max(X )- Min(X )

Every two years