Enhancing quality of life through strategic urban planning
Highlights
► Analysing efforts to measure quality of life indices shows its multifacets. ► Identifying how local stakeholders’ view aspects of their quality of life. ► Stakeholders assign weights to aspects through project prioritizing process. ► Strategic planning is a subjective tool to identify how to enhance quality of life. ► The index and strategic planning process can together improve quality of life.
Introduction
Quality of life has been the domain of development discourse for the past decade. It has been widely recognized that measuring progress in terms of GDP is not sufficient (for example see Cummins et al., 2003, Eckersley, 1998, Shea, 1976). This paper attempts to examine the concept of quality of life in relation to other related concepts such as standard of living, cost of living and life satisfaction.
In the quest to rate cities and countries according to their quality of life, numerous attempts by various organizations can be found. However, Cummins states that “the quality of life construct has a complex composition, so it is perhaps not surprising that there is neither agreed definition nor a standard form of measurement” (Cummins, 1997a).
Consequently, quantifying quality of life is faced by numerous debates such as those concerning what aspects should be measured, the relative weight of different aspects (Veenhoven, 2007), the average vs. real citizen's quality of life and objective vs. subjective indicators. The paper reviews the efforts of four different organizations to address the issue. It analyses the different aspects and relative weights used by these organizations, thus, revealing the multifacets of the concept of quality of life.
Strategic urban planning has dominated the urban planning field for the past 2 decades or more. It aims to improve the city's performance and ensure future development to be planned and responsive. Its reliance on participatory approach enriches the process, promotes local ownership and ensures, to an extent, its actual implementation. The overall aim of the process is to improve the performance of the city through adopting the strategic urban development plan. This can be viewed as a tool to enhance quality of life of city residences.
Through the analysis of strategic urban planning process in 2 cities in Egypt, the paper aims to identify how local stakeholders identify aspects of their quality of life. Furthermore, how they assign relative weights to each aspect through the process of prioritizing projects for achieving city future vision. The comparative analysis of different organizations’ quality of life indices and the strategic planning process of the 2 cities provides insights about the concept of quality of life in the development domain and how it can be viewed by various stakeholders. Through this methodology the paper advocates subjectivity of quality of life aspects which is more pressing in cases of limited resources available for interventions to improve future quality of life for city dwellers.
Section snippets
Quality of life vs. cost of living vs. standard of living concepts
The Gross Domestic Products (GDP) as a measure of the average standard of living used to be considered the one and only indicator to measure the well being of a nation. However, many concerns were raised with respect to inequality of wealth distribution and hence the introduction of the Gini coefficient to measure income distribution. Further, GDP was normalized using Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs) to be able to compare results from various countries on an actual base with respect to the
Quality of life indices
According to Rapley (2003) quality of life has developed from being a social scientific index of the relative well-being of whole populations (a measure of the state of states) to being a measurable aspect of individual subjective experience (an index of the state of persons) (Rapley, 2003). The ecological economist Robert Costanza adds that while quality of life has long been an explicit or implicit policy goal, adequate definition and measurement have been elusive (Costanza et al., 2008).
Strategic urban planning of cities in Egypt
Since 2008, a national project to prepare strategic urban plans for cities has been launched in Egypt following the issuing of a new building law that mandated a strategic urban plan for each urban agglomeration. In this context, the project for strategic urban planning for small cities, funded by the UN-Habitat, aims to improve performance and accountability in planning, implementing and coordinating action and contributes to achieving the MDGs. The project adopts a decentralized and
Quality of life between objective and subjective assessment of current situation and future strategic urban planning
It is vital to note that Mercer Quality of Living focuses on the well being of employees living in different cities to assess the amount of compensation the company should give for living there. The list helps multi-national companies decide where to open offices or plants, and how much to pay employees. This is similar to the liveability rating for the EIU. These surveys and ratings focus on cities as this is the concern of companies regarding their employees’ compensation packages. Quality of
Conclusion
Quality of life is at the core of current theories of urban design and planning; for example New Urbanism, Smart Growth and Sustainable Urbanism. However, to achieve a better quality for existing communities, priorities must be identified to direct efforts towards relevant sectors. The previous discussion has proven the richness yet uncertainty of the concept of quality of life. The comparison to strategic planning has proven the importance of local stakeholders’ opinion regarding the relative
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