Interesting question.Indicator speaks about the natural resources available for urban development, while criteria could be the civil amenities, trade offs etc , but surely thin line exists between the two..

I humbly suggest a different approach. While standards talks about choices you make, indicators are the measurements you make to assure you can reach the standards on a predicted time.

I agree with Gerson and I would like to enlarge the concept.

Urban planning is a large issue, since it refers not only to physical aspects. It involves urban aspects such as projects to embellish a city, transportation projects to facilitate communication, environmental aspects such as incrementing the green spaces per inhabitant, plans for converting the downtown area  in pedestrian thoroughfares, public health, education , rehabilitation of non longer used spaces such as harbour wharves, abandoned  railways yards, and many more.

Each of them generally involve many different projects and plans, such as constructing parks, bike roads, sports spaces, etc under the social issue.

Under the infrastructure issue there may be hundreds of projects such as improving quality of potable water, changing traditional street lights by LEDs, paving, sewage, flood protection, etc.

Therefore, in a traditional five or ten years plan prepared by the City Hall there could be hundreds of projects and pertaining to many different areas.

In order to qualify and evaluate those different plans and choose the best considering existing resources, mainly funding,  you need criteria. A criterion could be minimizing dirt roads, or maximizing gas connections to households or minimizing infant deaths.

Amongst criteria there could be some indicators. For instance, an international indicator is the number of green spaces per inhabitant, so you can include this indicator in your study to help evaluate those projects that will maximize green spaces.

Another indicator could be number of libraries per 100 inhabitants, that is another international indicator that you want to maximize

Another international indicator could be the minimum amount of water that each city dweller must use.

All these indicators have recommended values  generally produced by international organizations. For instance, for water the WHO (World Heath Organization) recommends a minimum of about 250 litres of water per person and per day. Sometimes you need to put a limit in order to avoid waste of water. Therefore, for the same indicator you may have two contradictory actions. You specify that at as a minimum each person must be allowed to consume 256 litres of water per day. However, you can also establish that the maximum allowable per person should be say 300 litres per person and per day

MCDM models are ideal to be used for urban planning, providing that they have the capacity to solve this large type of problems, perhaps with hundreds of projects and hundreds of criteria. If you ask me I would recommend PROMETHEE, TOPSIS and SIMUS.

Indicators help you understand where you are, which way you are going and how far you are from where you want to be. Indicators alert you to a problem before it gets too bad and helps you recognise what needs to be done to fix the problem. Indicators of a sustainable community point to areas where the links between the economy, environment and society are weak. They allow you to see where the problem areas are and help show the way to fix those problems.

Both are synonyms, but, used in a little or more different manners when they are used together for a common problem. For example, when you determine poverty indicators, then you fixed some dimensions of poverty at first, e.g. demographic, economic etc. These are indicators. Then, you define each indicators with some criteria. For example, to define demographic indicator you define it by family size, sex, education etc. Similarly, to define land use you can select some indicators which you can subdivide by criteria as well as sub criteria. So, it's all about framing the problems or issues, where, we set indicators at first and select criteria to define indicators. However, I think, both terms can be used interchangeably, such as, you can define criteria at first and then, select some indicators to measure each criteria.

In short:

Criteria are used to define ways of approaching a phenomenon or an urban problem; or forms of intervention in a project, is defined by the participants

Indicators, refer to the current state of a system, ie relay by means of values or parameters, usually scientific calculations.

It is completely different and one has to select one of them based on specific study. Indicators are more known and used extensively by the researchers.

Mr. Zubaidi, good day:

Your question caused confusion among your respondents. Some mistook it to be a query into the dictionary definitions/usages of the terms, some expounded at great length in this direction. I think this 'approach' is not useful. In contrast, one respondent, Ms. Gehan Selim, offered a substantive answer. I find this to be  right on. Good luck with your work, sir.

I agree with salim that indicator allows you to see where the problem areas are and possible solution to the problems

Nice discussion, Criteria and Indicators are complementary tools in Urban Planning. The Criteria helps you to select the exact number of alternative options you want to work with, either just one or two among the several alternatives urban planning projects or urban planning issue. It is the major decision-making tool, e.g. Using a scoring matrix criteria. Depending on the situation, a criteria have to been applied before an Indicator. Because Urban planning issues are diverse and interrelated, one issue cannot be picked out, just out the blue. 

The Indicators serve as guide or a desire picture of the state the selected urban planning project needs to be, and to show evidences of realization of the selected project. Without an indicator you cannot tell which stage the planning issue or project is. In Urban planning, a indicator can be set basing on an existing standard, internationally or locally. 

Will it not be more apt to say , criteria and indicators , both compliment each other...

Normally, indicators are given while criteria are more discussable. 

My understanding is that criteria in (urban) planning are parametric definitions to identify or define a specific normative course of action and that indicators reflect (probability or degree) of achievement with regard to the pretended activity once it is being implemented.

Dear Oliver

I would add than indicators establish limits that has to be honored by the alternatives.as when you say that CO2 contamination must be less than a certain value.

Criteria play the same role when you state for instance that you can't spent more than say  67846 dollars,  or that at least two projects must be executed.

I would say that indicators are normally established by national and international organizations, while criteria limits are established according to existent resources and the nature of the project

Dear Sabee

Criteria establish the conditions alternatives have to comply, for instance, in urban design, criteria could be as in this example:

The City Hall is studying three proposals for housing, in a plot of land, that was converted from agricultural use to residential, and it has to selected the best

They are subject to many criteria or conditions for instance, water supply, sewage, number of houses, indoor space per inhabitant, lighting, etc.

Each proposal submits its own performance values for each criterion. These are the tributes for each criterion

The City Hall in turn, makes it known to each promoter that there are especial characteristics for each criterion, and then, it can impose maximum and minimum values for each criterion, with the objective to assure quality and good services.

In that sense it can establishes the following RESTRICTIONS or LIMITS to criteria

Water supply: Each inhabitant must get as a minimum 250 liters per day.

Sewage:The sewerage must by capable to evacuate as a minimum 500 m3/hr.

Number of houses: There can't be any number. The City Hall establishes for instance a maximum of 45 houses or can gives maximum and minimum values for human density

Public roads: City Hall establishes a minimum numbers of meters for the width for urban roads

Green spaces: City Hall establishes a minimum of m2 for squares

Indoor spaces: City Hall establishes a minimum number of square meters for each inhabitant.

Lighting: City Hall establishes the maximum distance between luminaries and the minimum intensity of each one.

All of these limitations to criteria MAY BE considered as indicators, but they are not.

In my opinion, indicators are not a proper name for these values, because in reality they are limits.

Indicators normally indicate how the condition of something is and how it evolves as a function of time

For instance I would call indicators the number of hectares of forests, or the crime rate, or the disposable income, or number of children in a classroom

Dear all,

Thank you for your great scientific responses.

In fact, I think that the mystery still surrounds these scientific terms, and I would like to focus now on the difference between indicators and criteria in the case of use in the architectural researches or urban design researches.

regards

Anoop Kumar Srivastava Gerson José De Mattos Freire Nolberto Munier Gehan Selim @ Shoukry Roweis Frank J Popper

Dear Sabee

Again, I believe that there are clear differences between indicators and criteria. The former deal with data gathered generally along time, such as percentage of people using the subway, or amount of water needed per household

Criteria deal with aspects to be complied by alternatives.

Thus, in the first case, the subway indicator could be a value that puts limits to a criterion such as 'Transportation', and then it is the second term of its inequality.

Water needed could be an indicator that puts limits to criterion such as 'Water supply', and be a second term of its inequality

Dear Nolberto,

Thank you for useful advice.

regards

Nolberto Munier