Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Satisfied Residents in Different Types of Local Areas: Measuring What’s Most Important

  • Published:
Social Indicators Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In efforts to enhance subjective urban quality of life (QOL), most empirical research focuses on measuring satisfaction. However, other research suggests most residents are satisfied with where they live because they choose local areas which satisfy them on attributes important to them, within the constraints they face. Thus residents choosing very different local areas tend to have similar satisfaction levels. Rather than focusing on residential satisfaction in local areas, it may be useful to focus on residential preferences to both characterize and improve subjective urban QOL in local areas. This study compares satisfaction and preference measures in four broad types of urban environment in South East Queensland, Australia. As expected, the results showed similar levels of satisfaction across these urban environments (spanning inner city, suburban, outer suburban, and coastal areas) with regard to three broad attributes (access to services and facilities, the natural environment, and the social environment). In contrast, the importance of these attributes for residents varied between these urban environments. Thus residential preferences may characterize subjective urban QOL in different urban environments better than residential satisfaction. Moreover, residential preferences provide additional guidance for maintaining and enhancing subjective urban quality of life in local areas. This paper argues for a renewed focus on importance measures in addition to the existing focus on satisfaction measures in subjective urban QOL research.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Importance measures and residential preferences are closely related. However, preferences are the discrete ordered choices between alternatives while importance measures indicate the importance of different attributes in choosing between alternatives.

  2. For detailed explications of the residential relocation process and reviews of this literature, see Brown and Moore (1970), Desbarats (1983) and Golledge and Stimson (1997).

  3. This dataset has been deposited at the Australian Social Sciences Data Archive (http://www.assda.edu.au).

  4. This equals the pooled ratio of error variance to the sum of effect variance plus error variance (Tabachnick and Fidell 2007, p. 269).

References

  • Amerigo, M., & Aragones, J. I. (1997). A theoretical and methodological approach to the study of residential satisfaction. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 17(1), 47–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Andrews, F., & Withey, S. B. (1976). Social indicators of well-being: Americans perceptions of quality of life. New York: Plenum Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bonaiuto, M., Aiello, A., Perugini, M., Bonnes, M., & Ercolani, A. P. (1999). Multidimensional perception of residential environment quality and neighbourhood attachment in the urban environment. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 19(4), 331–352.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bonaiuto, M., Fornara, F., & Bonnes, M. (2003). Indexes of perceived residential environment quality and neighbourhood attachment in urban environments: A confirmation study on the city of Rome. Landscape and Urban Planning, 65(1–2), 43–54. doi:10.1016/s0169-2046(02)00236-0.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonaiuto, M., Fornara, F., & Bonnes, M. (2006). Perceived residential environment quality in middle- and low-extension Italian cities. European Review of Applied Psychology-Revue Europeenne De Psychologie Appliquee, 56(1), 23–34. doi:10.1016/j.erap.2005.02.011.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, L. A., & Moore, E. G. (1970). The intra-urban migration process: A perspective. Geografiska Annaler, 52, 368–381.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, A., Converse, P., Rodgers, W., & Marans, R. W. (1976). The residential environment. In A. Campbell, P. Converse, & W. Rodgers (Eds.), The quality of American life: Perceptions, evaluations and satisfactions (pp. 217–266). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chhetri, P., Stimson, R., & Western, J. (2011). Using GIS to derive region-wide patterns of quality of urban life dimensions: Ilustrated with data from the Brisbane-SEQ region. In R. W. Marans & R. Stimson (Eds.), Investigating quality of urban life: Theory, methods, and empirical research. New York: Springer.

  • Clark, W. A. V., Deurloo, M. C., & Dieleman, F. M. (2006). Residential mobility and neighbourhood outcomes. Housing Studies, 21(3), 323–342.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clark, W. A. V., & Huang, Y. Q. (2003). The life course and residential mobility in British housing markets. Environment and Planning A, 35(2), 323–339.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cummins, R., McCabe, M., Romeo, Y., & Gullone, E. (1994). The Comprehensive Quality of Life Scale (ComQol): Instrument development and psychometric evaluation on college staff and students. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 54, 372–382.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Desbarats, J. (1983). Spatial choice and constraints on behavior. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 73(3), 340–357.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fornara, F., Bonaiuto, M., & Bonnes, M. (2010). Cross-validation of abbreviated perceived residential environment quality (PREQ) and Neighborhood Attachment (NA) Indicators. Environment and Behavior, 42(2), 171–196. doi:10.1177/0013916508330998.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ge, J., & Hokao, K. (2006). Research on residential lifestyles in Japanese cities from the viewpoints of residential preference, residential choice and residential satisfaction. Landscape and Urban Planning, 78(3), 165–178.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Golledge, R., & Stimson, R. (1997). Spatial behavior: A geographic perspective. New York: Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hsieh, C. M. (2003). Counting importance: The case of life satisfaction and relative domain importance. Social Indicators Research, 61(2), 227–240.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hsieh, C. M. (2004). To weight or not to weight: The role of domain importance in quality of life measurement. Social Indicators Research, 68(2), 163–174.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim, T. K., Horner, M. W., & Marans, R. W. (2005). Life cycle and environmental factors in selecting residential and job locations. Housing Studies, 20(3), 457–473.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lees, L. (2000). A reappraisal of gentrification: Towards a ‘geography of gentrification’. Progress in Human Geography, 24(3), 389–408.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ley, D. (1996). The new middle class and the remaking of the Central City. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marans, R. W. (2003). Understanding environmental quality through quality of life studies: The 2001 DAS and its use of subjective and objective indicators. Landscape and Urban Planning, 65(1–2), 73–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marans, R. W., & Rodgers, W. (1975). Toward an understanding of community satisfaction. In A. Hawley & V. Rock (Eds.), Metropolitan America in contemporary perspective (pp. 299–352). New York: Halsted Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mastekaasa, A. (1984). Multiplicative and additive-models of job and life satisfaction. Social Indicators Research, 14(2), 141–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCrea, R. (2007). Urban quality of life: Linking objective dimensions and subjective evaluations of the urban environment. PhD Dissertation, The University of Queensland, Brisbane.

  • McCrea, R. (2011). Types of objective urban QOL in South-East Queensland, Australia: A spatial clustering approach. In R. W. Marans & R. Stimson (Eds.), Urban quality of life: Implications for policy, planning and research. Springer.

  • McCrea, R., Shyy, T. K., & Stimson, R. (2006). What is the strength of the link between objective and subjective indicators of urban quality of life? Applied Research in Quality of Life, 1, 79–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCrea, R., Stimson, R., & Western, J. (2005). Testing a moderated model of satisfaction with urban living using data for Brisbane-South East Queensland, Australia. Social Indicators Research, 72, 121–152.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mitrany, M. (2005). High density neighborhoods: Who enjoys them? GeoJournal, 64, 131–140.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mullins, P. (1995). Households, consumerism, and metropolitan development. In P. Troy (Ed.), Australian cities: Issues, strategies, and policies for urban Australia in the 1990s (pp. 87–111). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

  • Office of Urban Management. (2005). South East Queensland Regional Plan 2005–2026 (pp. 137). Brisbane: Department of Local Government, Planning, Sport and Recreation; Queensland Government.

  • Permentier, M., Van Ham, M., & Bolt, G. (2008). Same neighbourhood… Different views? A confrontation of internal and external neighbourhood reputation. Housing Studies, 23(6), 833–855. doi:10.1080/02673030802416619.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rossi, P. H. (1955). Why families move. Clenco, IL: The Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Russell, L. B., Hubley, A. M., Palepu, A., & Zumbo, B. D. (2006). Does weighting capture what’s important? Revisiting subjective importance weighting with a quality of life measure. Social Indicators Research, 75(1), 141–167.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sirgy, M. J., & Cornwell, T. (2001). Further validation of the Sirgy et al’.s measure of community quality of life. Social Indicators Research, 56(2), 125–143.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sirgy, M. J., & Cornwell, T. (2002). How neighborhood features affect quality of life. Social Indicators Research, 59(1), 79–114.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, D. P., & Phillips, D. A. (2001). Socio-cultural representations of greentrified Pennine rurality. Journal of Rural Studies, 17(4), 457–469.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stimson, R., McCrea, R., & Western, J. (2011). The Brisbane-South East Queensland region, Australia: Subjective assessment of quality of urban life and changes over time. In R. W. Marans & R. Stimson (Eds.), Investigating quality of urban life: Theory, methods, and empirical research. New York: Springer.

  • Sullivan, W. C. (1994). Perceptions of the rural-urban fringe: Citizen preferences for natural and developed settings. Landscape and Urban Planning, 29(2–3), 85–101.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2007). Using multivariate statistics (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trauer, T., & Mackinnon, A. (2001). Why are we weighting? The role of importance ratings in quality of life measurement. Quality of Life Research, 10(7), 579–585.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van den Berg, A. E., Hartig, T., & Staats, H. (2007). Preference for nature in urbanized societies: Stress, restoration, and the pursuit of sustainability. Journal of Social Issues, 63(1), 79–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vogt, C. A., & Marans, R. W. (2004). Natural resources and open space in the residential decision process: A study of recent movers to fringe counties in southeast Michigan. Landscape and Urban Planning, 69(2–3), 255–269.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yang, Y. Z. (2008). A tale of two cities: Physical form and neighborhood satisfaction in metropolitan Portland and Charlotte. Journal of the American Planning Association, 74(3), 307–323. doi:10.1080/01944360802215546.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Data from the 2003 Survey of Quality of Life in South East Queensland were collected as part of a project funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) (DP0209146).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, PO Box 2583, Brisbane, QLD, 4001, Australia

    Rod McCrea

  2. School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, 4072, Australia

    Tung-Kai Shyy & Robert J. Stimson

  3. School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia

    Tung-Kai Shyy

  4. Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN), Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, 3010, Australia

    Robert J. Stimson

Authors
  1. Rod McCrea
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Tung-Kai Shyy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Robert J. Stimson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rod McCrea.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

McCrea, R., Shyy, TK. & Stimson, R.J. Satisfied Residents in Different Types of Local Areas: Measuring What’s Most Important. Soc Indic Res 118, 87–101 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-013-0406-8

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-013-0406-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation