Hacking the Sustainable Development Goals: Can US Cities Measure Up?

The UN Sustainable Development Goals aim to address the world’s most pressing challenges, from poverty to climate change, by aligning priorities and developing shared metrics to measure progress. While the SDG framework is designed for nations, all levels of government will need data to track performance and target resources effectively.

This 2017 Urban Institute report shows that the majority of SDG targets are relevant to US cities and data are generally available to track progress locally, although gaps exist. It provides recommendations to help fill these gaps and create the conditions for better use of data to drive local progress on the SDGs.