BEQUEST: the framework and directory of assessment methods.

This paper has outlined the areas of the Environment and Climate Programme (Economic and Social Aspects of Human Settlement) the BEQUEST project addresses. It has also examined the framework for analysis the project sets out for a common understanding of SUD and the assessment methods currently made use of by planners, architects, engineers and surveyors to build environmental capacity. The paper has done this by: • fore-grounding the question of urban development and representing the process of urbanisation as a life cycle of inter-related activities; • agreeing the sustainable development issues underlying the urban process; • identifying the environmental, economic and social structure, spatial level and time scales of sustainable urban developmen