英语论文网

In the MACED (Mountain Association for Community Economic Development) vision, sustainable community development is 'the ability to make development choices which respect the relationship between the three 'E's'-economy, ecology, and equity' [16]:

Economy - Economic activity should serve the common good and activites;

Ecology - Humans are part of nature and nature has limits. In this situation the communities are responsible for protecting natural assets;

Equity - The opportunity for all members to fully participate in all activities, benefits, and decision-making of a society.

So we can say that the city sustainability is a multi-dimensional concept that includes economic, social and political dimensions (Huang et al., 2009; Olewiler, 2006).

Actual society is characterized by the rapidity of change information and knowledge in services and production fields. In this economy it is important to observe that the barriers of communication and the physical distance areare reduced, the value of knowledge and information depends on the situation in which they are used although the way in which they are understood by the citizen it is important too.

As a result, investment in innovation, research, education and technological changes have the most central point to economic performance (Figure 5).

The growth of economy can be analyzed through the investments in higher education, innovation and research, as well as software. Measurement of the performance of economy is based on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) indicator.

GDP is the value of total production of goods and services in an economy during a particular period (normally a year). These traditional indicators guide the policy decisions of governments. But to the extent that the knowledge economy works differently from traditional economic theory, current indicators may fail to capture fundamental aspects of economic performance and lead to misinformed economic policies (Arundel, 2005). The traditional indicators can’t measure the performance of knowledge economy because the knowledge isn’t a quantitative product.

Figure The factors that influence the Society Growth

In (Arundel, 2005) GDP for knowledge economy is needed for the following tasks:

measuring knowledge inputs;

measuring knowledge stocks and flows;

measuring knowledge outputs;

measuring knowledge and learning (human capital).

To measure knowledge inputs is similar to measure the investment in the production of scientific and technical knowledge, including research and development (R&D).

Development of knowledge flow indicators would yield better measures of the R&D and knowledge intensity of industries and economies.

Statistical techniques could be developed to estimate knowledge stocks based on current R&D input and flow measures.

To measure knowledge outputs and evaluate the performance of knowledge-based economies, priority should be placed on developing improved indicators of the private and social rates of return to R&D and other knowledge inputs. This includes measuring returns to individuals, firms and societies in terms of employment, output, productivity and competitiveness, and could be based on both macro-level econometric analyses and