Integrated City Sustainability Database (ICSD)
The Integrated City Sustainability Database (ICSD) was the first comprehensive data set of U.S. municipal governments and their sustainability programs and policies. Taking advantage of the unique opportunity to combine seven independent data collection efforts, the ICSD provides a valuable resource for scholars in multiple disciplines investigating local environmental and energy sustainability. It also adds missing elements to the research infrastructure for the study of local government policy in general.
The ICSD inventories municipal sustainability programs, institutions, administrative arrangements, political contexts and policy instruments that were in place in US cities in 2010. The first generation ICSD merges the separate surveys into one comprehensive national database, harmonizing survey data by matching questions across surveys for all 2,825 municipal respondents.
The second generation ICSD employs a Bayesian multiple-imputation method to impute values for all seven surveys for the 683 respondent cities with population greater than 50,000. For this subset of cities, the second generation provides complete data for all cities over 50,000 on 1,108 individual variables.
ICSD Survey Instruments
Publications using ICSD survey data
Cheng, Yuan. Angela YS Park, Rachel M Krause. (Accepted). Nonprofit Sector Size and the Breadth of Local Government Climate Actions: Exploring the Moderating Role of Collaboration. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly.
Curley, Cali, Nicky Harrison, Corey Kewei Xu, and Shan Zhou. (2021). Collaboration mitigates barriers of utility ownership on policy adoption: evidence from the United States." Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 64(1): 124-144. https://doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2020.1755241
Krause, Rachel M., Christopher V. Hawkins, Angela Y.S. Park. (2021). The perfect amount of help: An examination of the relationship between capacity and collaboration in urban energy and climate initiatives. Urban Affairs Review. 57 (2):583-608. https://doi.org/10.1177/1078087419884650
Deslatte, Aaron, and Richard C. Feiock. (2019) The collaboration riskscape: Fragmentation, problem types and preference divergence in urban sustainability." Publius: The Journal of Federalism 49(2): 352-377. https://doi.org/10.1093/publius/pjy020
Tang, Tian, and Alfred Tat-Kei Ho. (2019). A path-dependence perspective on the adoption of Internet of Things: Evidence from early adopters of smart and connected sensors in the United States. Government Information Quarterly 36(2): 321-332. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2018.09.010
Chiang Hsieh, Lin-Han, and Douglas Noonan. (2017). Strategic behavior in certifying green buildings: an inquiry of the non-building performance value." Environmental management 60(2): 231-242. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-017-0869-5
Curley, Cali, Rachel M. Krause, R.C. Feiock, Christopher V. Hawkins. (2017). Dealing with Missing Data: A comparative exploration of approaches utilizing the Integrated City Sustainability Database. Urban Affairs Review. 55 (2): 591-615. https://doi.org/10.1177/1078087417726394
Feiock, R.C., Rachel M. Krause, and Christopher V. Hawkins. (2017). The Impact of Administrative Structure on the Ability of City Governments to Overcome Functional Collective Action Dilemmas: A Climate and Energy Perspective. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. 27 (4): 615–628. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mux021
Yi, Hongtao, Rachel M. Krause, and Richard C. Feiock. (2017). Back-pedaling or continuing quietly? Assessing the impact of ICLEI membership termination on cities’ sustainability actions. Environmental Politics 26(1): 138-160. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2016.1244968
Hawkins, Christopher V., Rachel M. Krause, R.C. Feiock, and Cali Curley. (2016). Making Meaningful Commitments: Accounting for Variation in Cities’ Investments of Staff and Fiscal Resources to Sustainability. Urban Studies. 53 (9): 1902–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098015580898
Feiock, R.C., Rachel M. Krause, and Christopher J. Hawkins. Cali Curley. (2014). The Integrated City Sustainability Database. Urban Affairs Review. 50 (4): 577-589. https://doi.org/10.1177/1078087413515176
Krause, Rachel M., R.C. Feiock and Christopher J. Hawkins. (2014). The Administrative Organization of Sustainability within Local Government. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. 26(1): 113-127. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muu032