A decision-support framework for evaluating public investments: integrating sustainability in urban planning and resource allocation

This paper presents a new multi-method framework designed to evaluate, prioritise, categorise, and optimise public investments, providing policy guidance to governments and planners. The framework is based on the specific requirements of decision-makers to obtain sustainability indices, with the goal of achieving sustainable urban development. The article outlines a set of decision-support tools, each tailored to address particular challenges within the decision-making process, which form the components of the framework. The application process is also detailed by a real case study, showing how these components work sequentially to respond to the unique needs of each problem and highlighting how the framework can support decision-makers by facilitating comprehensive cross-analysis of investment performance, improving resource allocation strategies and improving sustainable urban planning. Using the sustainability indices, the proposed method can generate prioritised investment lists, categorise investments into distinct groups, or optimise a combination of investments within a fixed budget, while accounting for uncertainty in the indicators used.