Economic Instruments for Managing Environment and Urban Sustainable Development

Achieving urban sustainable development is among the urban managers’ and planners’ important concerns. Due to an increase in urbanization, goods and services are always in great demand in the cities and, hence, satisfying the citizens’ requirements requires sufficient financial resources. However, what is of note in financing resources is taking natural resources and environment into consideration in a way that it turns incomes into sustainable ones and it does not pose any threat to urban sustainable development. As a result, it seems essential to utilize economic instruments which suit environment management the best. However, it should be noted that development requires precise planning and should be in conjunction with the conditions and the status of countries. Urban sustainable development which meets the current needs of the world, without endangering the future generations’ potentials for satisfying their own requirements, is on three principles: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, and social sustainability. The current article, which takes a practical approach to the issue, utilizing the previous research, at first defines economic instruments, and then investigates into the effects of such instruments on the environment, resulting in the urban sustainable development. Moreover, the common methods of valuing natural resources and the experience of some countries are referred to.