Economic Sustainability Assessment for Urban Riverfront Development: A Concept Paper on Development of Spatial-Based Model

Urban Riverfront Development (URD) provides an opportunity for the development of economic growth within the riverfront area. However, the nature of sustainability assessment practice for URD in Malaysia is tended to be more focuses on social and environment aspect. Whereas, the economic impact of the URD that reflects on property market as a vehicle and driver of economic growth was left behind even there is significantly important compared the other countries over the world. In addition, the knowledge underpins the economic sustainability assessment indicators spatially is still deficient due to lack of research. These issues require a strategic assessment model in assessing the economic sustainability indicators for URD. Therefore, the aims of this paper are to investigate the relevant economic sustainability assessment indicators of URD and to develop a conceptual framework for development of spatial-based model of economic sustainability assessment indicators for the URD in order to uplift the sustainability assessment practice for URD in Malaysia. This study embarks a systematic review on economic sustainability assessment indicators of URD generally and investigates the appropriate methods that can be used in coming up a conceptual framework for development of spatial-based model of economic sustainability assessment indicators for URD in Malaysia. The result indicates only 33 economic sustainability indicators related to URD in general and only 6 indicators can be measured by using spatial analysis. An appropriate method for weighting the indicators is Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and a valuable tool for analyzing the spatial data is Geographic Information System (GIS). Perhaps the model proposed will assist stakeholders in assessing the economic sustainability indicators of URD and simultaneously improve the sustainability assessment practice for URD in Malaysia.