Sustainable urban development has been receiving growing concerns from both city managers and urban residents across the world. As a yardstick of sustainability, urban carrying capacity (UCC) is an important conceptual underpinning that guides local governments in promoting sustainable urban development. However, existing studies still lack consensus not only on the theoretical aspects, but also on the methodological issues for UCC monitoring and evaluation. A knowledge gap exists, which this paper fills. This study aims to develop a practical UCC assessment framework to guide urban development towards achieving sustainability. The quantitative-based assessment framework provides a set of measurable indicators and benchmarks for city managers to conduct routine monitoring on progress toward urban sustainability, and helps identify deficient areas, which urgently need resource allocation to improve UCC. Focusing on a case study of Beijing, this study demonstrates that the framework is useful in promoting urban sustainability. This framework provides rich implications for other city prototypes in China as the nation marches into the next phase of development.

China launched the “critical battle against poverty” nationwide in 2012. As its main battlefield, Yunnan province promulgated the “triple medical security” (TMS) policy in 2017. This study, based on the pooled cross-section database of 2015–2020 of registered poor households in Yunnan province, employed the logit model to examine the effect of TMS on the vulnerability as expected poverty (VEP) of these households. It found that increasing the reimbursement rates for overall medical expenses and inpatient expenses and decreasing the proportion of out-of-pocket medical payment to income reduced the VEP; increases in the number of sick people in the family increased its VEP, and although the increase in the reimbursement rate for overall medical expenses or for inpatient expenses partially offset the VEP caused by the increase in the number of chronically ill people in the family, the VEP caused by the increase in the number of critically ill people would increase in the short term with the increase in the reimbursement rate for overall medical expenses or for inpatient expenses. The findings help improve policies concerning the medical security and health of the rural poor population, providing theoretical reference and practical guidance for future research.