Review of Concepts, Tools and Indices for the Assessment of Urban Quality of Life

Abstract

The rapid urban growth poses a huge challenge in sustaining the quality of local environment and life characteristics in contemporary cities. There is a growing body of literature on sustainable cities, QoL, livability; yet a transparent and verifiable knowledge on its assessment at the urban scale is both limited and disparate. Very recently, the use of computational models, tools and indices has seen a sudden upsurge in QoL assessment at the city and sub-city level. This research, through an exhaustive review of scientific and policy literature postulates that despite promulgation of numerous and comprehensive indices and tools, yet these demonstrate a great deal of inconsistency and incomparability. This necessitates an investigation into what ought to be the preferred attributes/features of an ideal model, thereby demanding a systematic, transparent and objective appraisal of urban QoL assessment tools used worldwide. Addressing to the above objective, the research examines peer-reviewed papers to derive eight fundamental study criteria (type of dataset, scope or parameters, sample- coverage and unit, approach, technique, model type, interphase and application) that could typically characterizes such tool. It then reviews scientific and policy literature, open-access webpages on the internet to identify a first of its kind, exhaustive inventory of 26 urban QoL models and then critically evaluates these on the basis of the eight study criteria. The ensuing results bring to the fore a plethora of new, interesting and some inconvenient findings, most importantly that not even a single tool captures all the seven theoretical dimensions of QoL. Despite meant to evaluate quality in cities, only few tools conduct qualitative, subjective, bottom-up, GIS based simulation modeling that could effectively be put to use for more public and policy oriented applications. Lastly, the research demonstrates with credible evidence that a majority of tools/index continue to understand the city as a homogenous entity, with limited know-how on the variability of QoL at the neighbourhood level.

Appendix: Inventory of the Urban QoL Assessment Models, Tools and Indices: Title, Source and a Brief Description

S. no.	Title of the tool/paper Source (author, year)	Brief description
1	EIU Global Liveability Index Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU 2016)	The index produces regular reports on cost of living of world’s major cities. It has 30 livability indicators grouped in 5 categories; Stability (5 indices), Healthcare (6), Culture and Environment (9), Education (3), and Infrastructure (7). Each factor in a city is rated as acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable or intolerable. Out of the 30 indicators, 7 quantitative variables are rated based on the relative performance a city has in that indicator, a performance which is assessed from an international agency and the rest 23 qualitative variables, a rating is awarded based on the judgment of in-house analysts and in-city contributors. The scores are then combined and weighted to provide a score of 1–100 where 1 is considered intolerable and 100 is considered desirable. The liveability rating is provided both as an overall score and as a score for each category
2	Mercer Quality of living ranking (Mercer 2018)	The index is designed to assist people moving internationally and companies who relocate employees to decide on appropriate remuneration. It has 39 indicators grouped under ten categories; Political and Social Environment (5 indices), Medical and Health (8), Public Services and Transport (7), Consumer Goods (5), Economic Environment (2), Socio-cultural Environment (2), School & Education (1), Recreation (4), Housing (3) and Natural Environment (2). Cities are weighted and ranked against the base city
3	Monocle Quality of Life Survey (Monocle 2018)	An urban lifestyle annual magazine ranking world’s 25 most liveable cities provides an editorial based ranking examining Safety/Crime, Medical care, Climate/Sunshine, International connectivity, Public transportation, Quality of architecture, Environmental issues and Access to nature, Urban design, Business condition, Pro-active policy development and Tolerance conditions
4	City Prosperity index CPI (UN-HABITAT 2015)	A tool measuring the prosperity and sustainability of 300 cities around the world, based on 6 dimensions: Productivity, Infrastructure Development, Quality of Life, Equity & Social Inclusion, Environmental Sustainability, and Urban Governance & Legislation. It further has 22 sub-dimensions and 62 indicators
5	WSP Global Cities Index (WSP 2018)	The index ranks 24 cities across the Globe on 4 themes: Places, Mobility, Technology & Urban system, through: (1) Scored qualitative assessments of city plans (2) Socio-economic statistics for today and projections. Each theme is assessed and scores applied, on 1–10 scale (1 = poor, 10 = outstanding). The subjective scoring approach is based on evidence of forward looking policies, initiatives and funding, as outlined in city plans
6	Livablity index CII Institute for Competitiveness (CII 2010)	The Confederation of Indian Industry prepared first liveability index in 2010 to rank quality of life of 37 Indian cities to find competitive advantages for foreign investments. The index has multiple indicators under 8 Pillars; Demographic, Education, Health and medical standards, Safety, Housing option, Socio-cultural political environment, Economic environment and Natural/Built planned environment. Cities ranked on per capita measures instead of absolute number
7	Ease of Living Index Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA 2018)	The index was launched in 2018 ranking 111 Indian cities inhabited by more than 130 million people. The index has 4 parameters and 15 sub-categories: Institutional (governance), social (identity, education, health, security), economic (economy, employment) & physical factors (waste water & solid waste, pollution, housing/inclusiveness, mixed land use, power & water supply, transport, public open spaces), following Dimensional Index Methodology, which computes scores for each indicator with reference to ‘maximum within the comparison group’ or ‘absolute benchmarks’. A city score is based on its performance on each indicator under that pillar, and the level of importance i.e., the weight assigned to each pillar and indicator. The pillar weights are: Institutional (25 points), Social (25), Economy and Employment (5), and Physical (45). A Core indicator carries 70% weightage while Supporting indicator—30
8	Urban Living Index Social research firm McCrindle for the Urban Taskforce Australia (McCrindle 2015)	The index evaluates liveability of suburbs in Sydney in order to assess the areas that are most equipped to cater the needs of people living in high density housing. It has 20 measures, grouped under 5 categories; Affordability, Community, Employability, Amenity and Accessibility. Suburbs are given a score out of 5 based on all 20 category measures (from Census 2011 and Counts of Australian Businesses data). The Sydney Significant Urban Area is used as the benchmark from which comparison quintiles are derived
9	AARP Livability Index (AARP Public Policy Institute 2018)	An interactive web-based tool to measure community/neighbourhood livability, especially for aging population of the US community. It includes 60 indicators for 7 livability categories: Housing, Neighborhood, Transportation, Environment, Health, Engagement, and Opportunity. Each NH receives the score 0–100, the average place gets 50. To get the perfect score, a place has to be among the best in each of the 7 categories
10	The Progress Index Cleveland Neighborhood Progress and the Centre on Urban Poverty and Community development (CNP 2018)	A neighbourhood data tool available at 4 levels: Cuyahoga County, City of Cleveland, Statistical Planning Areas (Neighborhood SPAs), and community development corporation service area. A webpage tool where a user gets information about all factors (population trends and safety, diversity, housing, stability, community perception and well-being, health, educational attainment, workforce participation, and local economy) which influence the change in housing and income mobility (5 year trends)
11	NYC Well being index NYC and Columbia (NYC 2015)	A place based index of NH well being for New York City. The indicators are grouped in 6 domains; Education, health and well-Being, Housing, Economic security and mobility, Core infrastructure and services, Personal and community safety. Statistical techniques employed to modify spatial units used to reach the desired common geographic level: the Neighborhood Tabulation Area (NTA). Correlation analysis in STATA used for elimination of weak variables and data validity. Chosen indicators within each domain receive equal weight to create a composite domain score for every NTA; each 6 domains then receive equal weight within overall composite well-being score mapped in ArcGIS to display outcomes at the city and borough
12	Evaluating Urban Quality: Indicators and Assessment Tools for Smart Sustainable Cities (Garau and Pavan (2018)	The study developed an index to evaluate a city’s level of smart urban quality based on investigative checklists, objective and subjective indicators. Applied in NHs of Cagliari (Italy), the rating is based on a 5 point scale, referring to indicators that meet standards of the city’s master plan. A photographic survey and in situ NH analysis displays information on area conditions
13	A new approach to measuring the liveability of cities: the Global Liveable Cities Index (Giap et al. 2014)	The index ranks 64 world’s major world cities and also compares the ranking with the other 6 well known indices to demonstrate better results in comparing livability of ordinary persons. It captures economic vibrancy and competitiveness, domestic security and stability, socio-cultural conditions, public governance and environmental friendliness and sustainability
14	Research on Livable Community Evaluation based on GIS (Yin et al. 2018)	The GIS based system works on fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method taking Wuhan community as a case. GIS is introduced to assess liveable indices related to geographical location. The fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method quantifies factors that are unclear, difficult to quantify and to comprehensively evaluate an attribute from multiple factors
15	Development of a Liveable City Index (LCI) Using Multi Criteria Geospatial Modelling for Medium Class Cities in Developing Countries (Onnom et al. 2018)	Index developed using Khon Kaen District in Thailand as a case study based on resident’s opinions and expert’s recommendations with the integration of GIS techniques, considering: Safety, Economy, Environment, Education, Health, Transportation, Recreation, Population density and Public Utility. AHP method employed to derive weights assigned to each factor. The method follows a pair-wise comparison approach, providing a means to calibrate numerical scale. AHP is based on empirical findings where humans have certain difficulties in simultaneously addressing many (7 ± 2) decision criteria or alternatives, but which they are well capable of evaluating in pairs. Thus, the pair-wise comparison approach coupled with a ratio scaling method has been used to determine the relative importance among all decision elements in a multiple-attribute decision-making environment
16	Statistical Analysis of Urban Quality of Life, 2017 (Mamuye and Gotu 2015)	Urban QoL studied of Hawassa, Ethiopia using statistical methods such as descriptive statistics, factor analysis and binary logistic regression. The principal component analysis revealed 6 factors/dimensions out of 27 subjective attributes and factor analysis revealed six factors out of 15 objective attributes are positively related of quality of life
17	Identify factors for evaluating livability potential within a Metropolis: A case of Kolkata (Paul and Sen 2017)	The research has identified the prime factors to evaluate livability potential in Kolkata Metropolitan Area using 8 set of indicators: Housing, Employment and income, Educational facilities, Health and social services, Transportation facilities, Leisure and culture, Crime and safety, Public open space, selected from extensive literature review and using ordinal logit regression for evaluation
18	Evaluating the Livable Capacity of Urban Neighborhoods in Tehran (Dadashpour et al. 2016)	The researcher identified assessment of neighbourhood livability components based on world literature to rank Harandi, Kosar, and Takhte’s neighbourhoods in Tehran. The research methodology is descriptive analytic using Excel software. For evaluating and ranking, Electre model was used
19	Empirically Evaluating the Livability of Local Neighborhoods and Global cities (Derix et al. 2017)	The research interpreted the metric of ‘accessibility to amenities’ to suggest that, while the global profile of cities varied, local NHs preferred by certain end uses turned out to be similar. To demonstrate this, authors took Shoreditch, Flatiron and Ultimo as cases in London, New York and Sydney. To assess differences across cities and NHs, each city was assigned a profile based on 10 metrics, relating to morphological demographic and governance features
20	Serviceability and Liveability Planning In Yelwa Sector of Bauchi Metropolis, Nigeria (Dukku 2018)	The researcher identified serviceability and livability indicators for sustainable development in Yelwa sector of Bauchi, Nigeria. The indicators are grouped under 5 indices; Environmental, Cultural, Law and order, Healthcare, Education while their ranking is based on the respondent perception
21	Linking Urban Form and Quality of Life in Kolkatta, India (Bardhan et al. 2011)	The study explores the link between spatial urban form and QoL in the high-density kolkata Municipal Area. Variables like population density, compactness and crowding considered as a measure of urban form and domains of human life that contribute to QoL ranging from assests, landuse, accessibility etc. The study uses principal axis factoring method for extraction, and Varimax rotation & Kaiser Normalization to retain only those whose eigenvalue exceeded 1.0. Finally factor scores imported to Arc Info and Trend Surface Analysis performed to fit a sixth-degree Trend surface Map fitted to factor scores. This helps viewing current trends in urban form in comparison to Urban QoL
22	Indicators of Quality of Life to Compare Neighborhood Units and Regional Areas: A model to collect data in Turkish cities (Çubukçu and Erin 2015)	A model to collect data, measure and compare QoL in NH units and regional areas of Turkey. This tool is developed based on extensive literature review
23	Neighborhood satisfaction, physical and percieved naturalness and openness (Hur et al. 2010)	The study explores the link between naturalness and openness and the neighbourhood satisfaction. GIS and satellite imagery used to physically measure the environmental attributes while residents asked to rate those attributes, for satisfaction with it and overall neighbourhood satisfaction
24	Quality of Life in Urban Neighborhoods at Pulau Pinanag, Malaysia (Salleh and Badarulzaman 2012)	This model examines the social, economic and physical feature of urban NH that contributes to the overall satisfaction, which in turn positively affect the overall feeling towards life. Primary data collected through personal interview analysed using descriptive statistics of the mean score (of satisfaction based on a likert scale). Factor analysis used to find the underlying dimension of QoL
25	Urban Quality of Life: A case Study of Guwahati (Das 2008)	The study proposes a framework to evaluate QoL which consists of objective condition of living and satisfaction, considering physical, social and economic conditions in Guwahati. Factor analysis used for reduction of dimensions which are highly correlated to QoL
26	An assessment of Residential QoL in Port Harcourt Municipality (Wokekoro and Owei 2014)	The researcher has assessed urban residential QoL in eight NHs of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria. NH attributes positively related to QoL are; Garbage on streets, Street lightning, Traffic congestion, NH vigilante groups, NH gangs, Periodic flooding and Public transportation. The study adopted a passive-observational research design, utilizing both primary & secondary data source