Assessing the environmental competitiveness of cities based on a novel MCDM approach

Many factors affect the competitiveness of cities. One of the most important of these factors is the environmental dimension, which can affect and be influenced by economic and sociocultural aspects of urban competitiveness. The present study assesses the environmental competitiveness of cities with populations of more than 500,000 in Iran. Our research weighting approach consists of integrated ITARA FUCOM methods to obtain nine criteria weights based on actual data evaluation and expert ideas. In addition, experts' statements are presented using gray logic and transformed into crisp numbers. Then, a modified MARCOS method that uses logarithmic normalization is introduced and implemented to assess fourteen target cities. Finally, The results of MARCOS-LN are compared to those of MARCOS itself, as well as three more MCDM methods (EDAS, CODAS, TOPSIS) and their versions, which utilize logarithmic normalization. The research findings showed that the city of Rasht is the most environmentally competitive, while the city of Kerman is the least competitive (rank 14) among the Iranian cities with populations greater than 500,000. The research results indicate that to improve the competitive position of Iranian cities, the internal capacities, relative advantages, and the competitive role each city can have on a transnational scale, their internal capacities should be paid attention to. This requires decentralized national and transnational planning and development competitiveness scenarios for medium and long-term periods.