Investigating Quality of Urban Life: Theory, Methods, and Empirical Research

The work synthesizes past and current research on the quality of urban life that has been done internationally. It emphasizes the contributions of the urban environment to the overall well-being of residents living in urban areas ranging in scale from small cities and their hinterlands to metropolitan regions. By urban environment, we mean the socio-physical aspects of urban living ranging from individual dwellings and neighbourhoods to public services (i.e. transportation, rubbish collection, etc.) to neighbours and community organizations. The work emphasizes not only perceptions of and behaviours within urban environments but the actual conditions to which individuals are responding. That is, the research covers both the subjective and behavioural aspects of urban living but also the objective conditions which drive them.

The work that has been underway is theoretically driven and will contribute to knowledge in several academic disciplines. At the same time, it is designed to inform public policy and planning in each setting.

This book stems from a long period of collaborative research between the editors, research colleagues, and their graduate students. It als draws on collaborative research with international scholars investigating aspects of urban quality of life in their respective settings. Many of these efforts parallel work initiated by the editors in metro Detroirt and in southeast Queensland. It involves research that incorporated theoretical and methodological appraches to the conceptualizing and measuring quality of life. The book will cover research designs that are based on both the analysis and modelling of aggregate secondary data and the collection, analysis and modelling of primary survey data on subjective urban quality of life. It also covers the interface of survey data with spatial objective data using GIS techniques.

The book will comprise chapters which: 1) provide an overview of theoretical perspectives on the study of urban quality of life; 2) present research designs for the collection of data to measure and model QoL domains; 3) provide a series of case studies of urban QoL in a number of around the world.