The Assessment of Turkish Urban Environmental Sustainability With Categorical Data Envelopment Analysis

Urban environmental sustainability is crucial to access better standards of living and general welfare level for the urban population in economic, environmental and social contexts. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the current position of varios cities in Turkey with respect to urban environmental sustainability. In doing so, one of the most frequently utilized methods for environmental studies in recent years, the Data Envelopment Analysis, is used. However, due to the geographical differences and non-homogeneousstructure of the cities, the method of categorical data envelopment analysis is preferred in the empirical analysis. According to these findings, the cities like Adana, Bilecik, Bolu, Kırklareli, Kocaeli, Yalova, Ağrı, Çankırı, Karaman and Niğde showed considerably high performance. On the other hand, the performance of Antalya, Denizli, Muğla, Aydın, Balıkesir, Aksaray, Sivas and Kahramanmaraş remained insufficient in the context of urban sustainability.