Urban development plays a role in global progress, but its sustainability is still a pressing issue. Indicators are a kind of powerful tool for addressing issues about urban sustainability and have gained increasing attention. However, making them become a universal “language” to solve this global issue is still challenging and controversial. This paper firstly summarizes 1442 indicators in the previous 47 urban sustainability studies. Then, based on the discussion of deficiencies in framing, conceptualizing, labeling, and digitalizing urban sustainability, we propose challenges facing indicators to become a universal language for sustainable urban development. Accordingly, this paper calls for an indicator dictionary, established by a particular global organization, constructed standardized and applied localized.

中文翻译：

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指标成为可持续城市发展的通用语言所面临的挑战

城市发展在全球进步中发挥着作用，但其可持续性仍然是一个紧迫的问题。指标是解决城市可持续性问题的一种有力工具，并受到越来越多的关注。然而，让它们成为解决这一全球性问题的通用“语言”仍然具有挑战性和争议性。本文首先总结了以往 47 项城市可持续性研究中的 1442 项指标。然后，基于对城市可持续性框架、概念化、标签和数字化缺陷的讨论，我们提出了指标面临的挑战，以成为可持续城市发展的通用语言。因此，本文呼吁建立一个由特定的全球组织建立、标准化构建、本地化应用的指标字典。