Quality of Life Perceptions and Directions for Urban Regeneration in Hong Kong

Urban regeneration can be an effective tool to promote sustainability and enhance macro-level quality of life if the principles of encouraging participation, building community character, advancing equity, improving environment and enlivening the economy are observed. Through the assessment of various quality of life indicators related to these five basic principles for sustainable urban regeneration by the public, private and community sectors, this paper finds that Hong Kong falls far short of realizing these fundamental principles. There are also considerable discrepancies between the public and non-public (private and NGOs) sectors in terms of evaluating existing quality of life issues and perceiving their relative priorities. The private and community sectors tend to have lower rating of existing situation and consequently a longer priority list. On the contrary, the public sector seems to be more complacent with the existing quality of life situations and has a much shorter priority list. The public sector’s more relaxed attitude coupled with a top-down executive-led polity mean that Hong Kong will probably have a long way to go toward sustainable urban regeneration.     

Analyzing Accessibility Dimension of Urban Quality of Life: Where Urban Designers Face Duality Between Subjective and Objective Reading of Place

The subject of urban quality of life and the promotion of its concept in particular, has always been the central focus of urban designers. This term is a multi-conceptual and dimensions. However most of the scholars have agreed that the concept consisted from two main dimensions; objective and subjective which these two approaches are used for its measuring. One of the important goals of urban designers is to create urban environment that all citizens have easy access to urban services, as accessibility reflects the quality of an urban environment. The present research intends to measure the public space accessibility by using objective approach in first and then by using the subjective approach for measuring in the study area to compare the results. The results revealed that there are considerable differences between objective and subjective measuring of urban quality of life in a urban space, therefore urban designers can not rely only on the results of objective measuring to understand such spaces for planning, if so, their attitudes towards urban spaces could not be an appropriate guide for explaining the quality of life for urban residents.     

Quality of Life Perceptions and Directions for Urban Regeneration in Hong Kong

Urban regeneration can be an effective tool to promote sustainability and enhance macro-level quality of life if the principles of encouraging participation, building community character, advancing equity, improving environment and enlivening the economy are observed. Through the assessment of various quality of life indicators related to these five basic principles for sustainable urban regeneration by the public, private and community sectors, this paper finds that Hong Kong falls far short of realizing these fundamental principles. There are also considerable discrepancies between the public and non-public (private and NGOs) sectors in terms of evaluating existing quality of life issues and perceiving their relative priorities. The private and community sectors tend to have lower rating of existing situation and consequently a longer priority list. On the contrary, the public sector seems to be more complacent with the existing quality of life situations and has a much shorter priority list. The public sectors more relaxed attitude coupled with a top-down executive-led polity mean that Hong Kong will probably have a long way to go toward sustainable urban regeneration.     

A Perception Survey for the Evaluation of Urban Quality of Life in Kocaeli and a Comparison of the Life Satisfaction with the European Cities

Studies on urban quality of life (QoL) have been attracting lots of attention from various countries due to the deterioration of urban environment and decrease of the urban QoL. These studies that have been supported by international organizations such as United Nations, World Bank, OECD, European Commission and EUROSTAT (European Statistics) involve comparative assessment of life satisfaction in the European cities and comparing cities facilitate the exchange of experiment and improve the quality of local policies. The main objective of this study is to measure the local perceptions of QoL in Kocaeli, which is one of the important industrial cities of Turkey and compare the life satisfaction with the European cities. Generally, two different types of indicators have been used: objective and subjective indicators. The objective indicators cover five fields: socio-economic aspects, participation in civic life, education and training, environment and culture, and leisure. The subjective indicators are mainly for valuation of QoL perceptions in a city. In this research, a perception survey will be carried out to measure the local perceptions of QoL in Kocaeli. This survey will present on issues for which the residents in the Kocaeli had widely diverging opinions: employment opportunities, housing costs, safety, cleanliness of city, public transport, air quality and overall satisfaction with the QoL of their city. Thus, the study will become a major reference for local officials to improve QoL in Kocaeli and contribute to researches on QoL in cities.     

Indicators for the measurement of the quality of urban life

In the wealth of studies on measuring the quality of life, an autonomous ’urban’ trend has been progressively distinguishing itself, namely the extension of urban conditions of life to an ever higher percentage of the world's population. From the concept of city understood as a negation of environmental values, we have passed, thanks to a long multidisciplinary evolution, to the concept of the urban ecosystem and to that of the ecological city. What type of indicators may be used for the measurement of the quality of life in the urban environment? And what is their most appropriate ambit of application? An Italian experience in environmental planning (the Ten-Year Plan for the Environment — DECAMB, and the Territorial Frame of Reference — QUADROTER, for the Ministry of the Environment) may offer starting points for a research programme. Concepts such as land supply and demand; territorial loading; equilibrium and spill-over of urban systems; critical population mass, are used to introduce and initial experimental set of (objective and subjective) indicators of the quality of life orientated towards planning, both as regards the provision of services, and for participatory and symbolic aspects. But if a place is meaningless without a subject, so too a person removed from his own place is a man of uncertain identity.     

Monitoring Urban Quality of Life: The Porto Experience

This paper describes the monitorin g system of the urban quality of life developed by the Porto City Council, a new tool being used to support urban planning and management. The two components of this system – a quantitative approach based on statistical indicators and a qualitative analysis based on the citizens’ perceptions of the conditions of life – are presented. The strengths and weaknesses of these two approaches adopted in the project are reviewed. It is argued that, in order to achieve a deeper understanding and more effective measurement of urban quality of life, both kinds of measurements are useful and complement each other.     

Establishing Disaster Resilience Indicators for Tan-sui River Basin in Taiwan

A major trend in disaster management is to build resilience for sustainable development. Resilience is defined as the ability which may be learned from previous disaster experiences to make the system more stable than before through absorbing and adapting the changes caused by the disaster. In this paper, enhancing disaster resilience in a river basin is studied and regarded as an important operation process to achieve sustainability of urban area. The measurement of disaster resilience can be used as a potential environmental disaster diagnosis of previous urban planning policy strategies, and is a required foundation for drafting future spatial and urban planning policies. This paper proposes an application that combines fuzzy Delphi and analytic network process techniques in order to establish a set of disaster resilience indicators for a re-developed urban area in Tan-sui River Basin (Taiwan). By incorporating expert opinion, a priority index is calculated for each studied disaster resilience indicator. And, an enhanced resilience indicator evaluation methodology, which reflects interdependencies among evaluation dimensions using an integrated approach, is suggested in this paper. The results show that the main influences on satisfaction are: (1) factors of the management institute of basin, (2) financial capability, (3) conservation of water resource, (4) environmentally sensitive area, and (5) conservation of slope area. Overall, these main influences (five resilience indicators) show future directions for sustainable development in Tan-sui River Basin.     

The Social Indicators Movement at 50: Onwards in Unity or Divided?

Before we can move forward with new topics in quality of life research, it would be useful to settle a number of issues that have been a source of debate over the last 50 years. Broadly speaking, this leads to seven principles for measuring and describing quality of life: the central focus is on people; quality of life is about more than just economics; a full measurement must incorporate both objective and subjective indicators; quality of life incorporates several dimensions; the outcome must be viewed separately from the determinants; there must be attention for distribution and difference; the domains can be combined into an index (though this is not essential). The main debate is perhaps about whether or not there should be an index. An index is necessary if we wish to give social indicators the same status as economic indicators have through GDP. In my view, that is desirable. Once these principles are established, the agenda for future social indicators research can be shaped using a model-based approach incorporating several recommendations from Land and Michalos.     

Mediating Effects Between Objective and Subjective Indicators of Urban Quality of Life: Testing Specific Models for Safety and Access

Enhancing the urban quality of life (QoL) is an explicit policy goal of many countries, yet it is rarely studied using models that relate objective measures of the urban environment to the subjective evaluations of residents. It thus often remains unclear how planning interventions in the urban environment may influence residents’ satisfaction with their living conditions. In particular, during periods of significant urban growth, such as those recently observed in Switzerland, which result in diverse, unwanted threats to the local QoL (e.g., loss of green spaces, traffic congestions, and fear of crime). This study uses data from a sample of 1,693 residents that participated in a postal survey about urban QoL. The responses were combined with objective attributes of residential conditions, using geographic information systems. Structural equation models were calibrated to examine the direct and indirect effects of important indicators of urban QoL, namely safety in public spaces and access to central urban facilities. The study sheds further light on the mediating effects between objective characteristics and subjective evaluations that influence the urban QoL. The results showed predominantly low correlations between objective characteristics and subjective evaluations of urban QoL, which confirmed the findings of the few previous studies on this topic. Surprisingly, this study also found a strong link between objective access and perceived accessibility. This relation was explained by the spatial scope of the study region and suggested that the scale discordance theory should be tested in future research. The findings implied that variations in objective measures do not reliably represent differences as evaluated by residents.     

The Non-Economic Quality of Life on a Sub-National Level in South Africa

Most research on the non-economic quality of life have been (a) on a national level or performed on cross-country comparisons, and/or (b) used subjective indicators to measure how people perceive their non-economic quality of life. In this paper, our main contribution is to construct objective indicators of the non-economic quality of life for 354 sub-national magisterial districts in South Africa. We also compare changes in these indicators over time, and consider methodological issues in the construction of objective indicators of non-economic quality of life. We find that although income does matter for the overall quality of life, non-income components of the quality of life can make an important difference. We find a number of places with low incomes that have been able to achieve higher than expected outcomes in terms of the non-economic quality of life, and that some of the relative income poor areas have improved their non-economic ranking between 1996 and 2004. We also find that the geographical/environmental quality of life in South Africa is better in non-urban areas, where fewer of the country’s population is residing. Significant improvements in the overall quality of life may be achieved through improvements in the urban natural environment.

Quality of Life of Residents Living near Industrial Estates in Singapore

Quality of life (QOL) studies are increasinglygaining the attention of urban planners due toits usefulness in assessing and monitoringpublic policies. With this in mind, an attemptwas made in this study to assess the quality oflife of residents staying near industrialestates in Jurong, Singapore using 18subjective life indicators to measure theoverall life satisfaction.Based on a 5-point Likert scale, health (4.48),family life (4.37) and public safety (4.13)emerged as the more important aspects, whileself-development (3.90), religion (3.60) andpolitics (2.74) were named by the respondentsto be among the least important. On thesatisfaction level, public safety (3.92),family life (3.88), and public utilities (3.78)were deemed to be among the most satisfiedaspects, while consumer goods (2.92), politics(2.91) and environment (2.89) were consideredto be among the least satisfied aspects. Therelationship between the different demographicvariables with overall life satisfaction werealso determined and five variables, namely,marital status, education level, occupation,household income and household size were foundto contribute significantly to the overall lifesatisfaction scores.Overall, the residents in Jurong were found tobe generally satisfied with their life, scoringa mean satisfaction rating of 3.687. It ishoped that the data gathered from this studycan be used by planners in formulating andimplementing future policies.     

Core Indicators to Assess Quality of Life in Population with Brain Injury

Assessing quality of life of people with brain injury has a relevant role for developing strategies focused on personal outcomes that allow us to guide good practices and rehabilitation. So far, assessment of quality of life for this population has been restricted to an evaluation of personal outcomes from a health-related quality of life perspective. This approach it is mostly centered on physical health, however, quality of life needs to be addressed from a holistic and multidimensional perspective. The goal of this study is to identify core indicators of quality of life in brain injury based on a comprehensive theoretical model focused on the most relevant aspects of this population functioning. A Delphi study was carried out to obtain the specific core indicators of quality of life for this population. The methodology used to reach a consensus about the best indicators and items to measure quality of life involved four rounds and 14 experts on rehabilitation of people with brain injury. The Delphi study provided evidence of content validity for the field-test version of a new scale that will be applied to a wide sample in order to empirically check its suitability for this population.     

Evaluating the Quality of Urban Development Plans Promoted by the European Union: The URBAN and URBANA Initiatives in Spain (1994–2013)

Since the 1990s, the European Union has launched different programs to promote urban development plans. Implementation and outcomes evaluations have resulted in a “European urban acquis” concerning the importance of comprehensiveness, collaborative governance, and participation to promote “good plans.” However, the evaluation of the quality of local plans, has received less attention. This article analyses quality of local plans developed under the framework of European Policies in Spain applying the plan quality evaluation approach, as well as factors explaining quality levels of these local plans. A scale to measure plan quality is proposed based on five main dimensions (fact base, objectives, policy actions, plan governance, evaluation). 64 local plans are analyzed applying content analysis. RgW and AD tests are used to measure codification reliability. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is used to assess the validity of plan quality scale. Lineal regression is applied to analyze the impact of different aspects of planning process included in the ‘European urban acquis’ on plan quality. Main results show that CFA validates the scale proposed to measure local plan quality as a second-order factor; and point out objectives and policy actions as the most important first-order factors. Public participation during planning process, and more comprehensive plan across different policy areas, are the main factors explaining ‘good plans’. Therefore, the importance of the ‘European urban acquis,’ is confirmed in order to produce ‘good’ urban development plans; and the article provides a validated scale to evaluate the quality of urban development plans, and their main dimensions.

     

中国城市人口生活质量区域性量化研究

改革开放30年来,中国城市人口生活质量得到大幅度提高,但是,国内不同区域人口生活质量存在较大的差异。根据统计分析中因子分析和聚类分析的方法,构建评价生活质量的指标体系,运用社会统计学软件SPSS15.0对2005年中国31个地区16项反映城市人口生活质量的截面数据指标进行量化分析。同时,根据计算结果对中国东中西和东北地区4个区域31个地区城市人口生活质量水平进行等级划分和综合评价。     

关于计划生育干部培训形式的几点思考

目前我国人口与计划生育工作已进入稳定低生育水平、综合治理人口问题的新阶段 ,要求全面提高计划生育干部素质 ,教育培训工作越来越显示出其重要性。本文探讨了原有培训形式存在的问题和今后计划生育干部培训形式的多元化发展     

Examining the Effects of Perceptions of Community and Recreation Participation on Quality of Life

The study of quality of life remains a key area of interest for not only researchers but to society. Through research being completed in multiple disclines and from a multitude of perspectives, the need to understand the full breadth of quality of life is required in order for the further development of this research area. Through building on previous research completed on quality of life from multiple disclines, this study utilizes numerous objective and subjective indicators to model quality of life in a community in the southwest United States. Through the analysis of 352 completed surveys, it was found that the two strongest predictors of quality of life were community pride and community elements. Of interest is that a number of other indicators including recreation participation and length of residency in a community were found to have a negative relationship with quality of life.     

Quality of Life and Well-Being Ranking of Selected Districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,Pakistan

Quality of life (QoL) is a multidimensional concept encompassing many aspects of an individual’s existence. It is not just a measure of material resources but of intangible environments which affect quality of life. The study concentrates on the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, and looks at the QoL and well-being in thirteen districts representing the province’s major population. It followed an integrative approach to measuring quality of life. Principal component analysis was used to tackle with multidimensionality. Weighted factor scores were used as an index for ranking QoL and well-being on the basis of social indicators chosen in different life domains. The results show that districts having high urban disposition top the ranks in QoL in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, like Peshawar, Mardan, Swat and Charsadda, while Bannu, Kohat and Lower Dir fall amongst the bottom districts in terms of QoL. The rural/urban ranking also follows similar patterns with a few exceptions.     

Measurement of socio-economic inequality using the Life-Quality Index

As income inequality presents a narrow view of overall inequality prevailing in a society, the paper focuses on its much broader definition, referred to as socio-economic inequality, which considers the disparities in income as well as in mortality, and standard of living. The paper presents a new method for measuring the socio-economic inequality using a composite social indicator, Life-Quality Index, derived from two principal indicators of development, namely, the Real Gross Domestic Product per person and the life expectancy at birth. Income inequality and the associated life expectancy variations are integrated into a quality adjusted income (QAI), to account for the observed differentials in life-quality of various quintiles of the population. The Gini coefficient of the distribution of QAI is introduced as a measure of socio-econmic inequality. The proposed approach is illustrated using data on life expectancy of five income quintiles in urban Canada. It is found that the magnitude of inequality in Canada is higher than that reflected by the traditional measure, the Gini coefficient of income.