Institutional Features Fostering Sustainability and Livability in European Cities

This study analyzes the longitudinal relationships between the three dimensions of urban sustainability and city livability, while exploring the moderating effect of the institutional framework on those relationships. Specifically, we propose that regulatory institutions and citizens’ pressures moderate the relationships between economic, social, and environmental urban sustainability on city livability in the long term. We test those relationships in a sample composed of data from 20 European cities from 2011 to 2016. Overall, our findings validate the causal positive effect of the three urban sustainability dimensions on city livability. In addition, our results confirm the moderating effect of regulatory institutions on the relationships between social urban sustainability and city livability, and the moderating effects of citizens’ pressures on the relationships between environmental and social urban sustainability and city livability. Therefore, these results help to extend current knowledge on the interconnections between urban sustainability, city livability and their institutional background.