Giovanni Perucca (p), Camilla Lenzi

Sander Van Lanen

A long stream of research pointed out that urbanization is associated (above a certain threshold generally fixed at about 150k inhabitants) with lower life satisfaction (Morrison, 2007; Okulicz-Kozaryn, 2015). While this association is, at least for developed countries, largely recognized, less is known about the reasons why this might happen. Studies on this issue usually suggest that, in large cities, urban diseconomies like congestion, cost of living and pollution overcome the positive externalities represented, for instance, by job opportunities, amenities etc. (Lenzi and Perucca, 2016). This hypothesis, however, has not been investigated neither from a conceptual nor from an empirical perspective. Yet, it is quite unrealistic to assume urban externalities to affect individuals in the same way. Education, professional status and income are the characteristics determining to what extent individuals can benefit of the advantages of urbanization or, on the other hand, suffer of its diseconomies. The present paper aims at providing a discussion on this issue, jointly with an empirical analysis of the unequal impact of urbanization on different categories of city residents.

References.
Lenzi, C., & Perucca, G. (2016). Are urbanized areas source of life satisfaction? Evidence from EU regions. Papers in Regional Science.
Morrison, P. S. (2007). Subjective wellbeing and the city. Social Policy Journal of New Zealand, 31, 74.
Okulicz-Kozaryn, A. (2015). Happiness and place: Why life is better outside of the City. Springer.

Philip Morrison (p)

Giovanni Perucca

The urban paradox refers to the fact that while agglomeration economies confer both production and consumption advantages, the average subjective well-being of residents in the very large cities of developed economies is consistently lower than the rest of the country. Higher levels of congestion, pollution, housing prices and crime are partly to blame but over and above these idiosyncratic features are more fundamental scale effects.
In this paper I argue that urban agglomeration raises the income and well-being returns to those with tertiary education while depressing the real income and well-being of the less qualified. The mechanisms generating the skill based disparities in well-being involve not only income differences but the positive effect of education on social engagement which further raises the well-being of those higher income residents clustered in pleasant environments. Meanwhile the lower real incomes of the less skilled mean they reside in relatively poorer parts of the city and experience lower levels social engagement which further depresses well-being. While the proportion of educated workers is substantially higher in very big cities, the much larger proportion of the less educated results in the lower average levels of well-being we witness in large conurbations.
Empirical support comes from the application of multivariate OLS and quantile regression models to the European Social Survey, http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/

Sander Van Lanen (p), Dimtris Ballas (p)

Philip Morrison

This paper argues that the urban scale in itself is inappropriate to assess geographic variations in the well-being of populations. Although higher average wages and agglomeration economies are present within large cities, internal geographies of inclusion and exclusion shape differential access to the benefits, amenities, and services cities have to offer, and thus how these affect the well-being of diverse populations. Using Dublin as a case study, this article presents the urban variations in well-being in relation to socio-economic deprivation and social and spatial exclusion. Interviews with young adults from Ballymun, one of Dublin’s most deprived urban neighbourhoods, further illuminate how such spatially contingent access to urban employment, services and amenities affects well-being as experienced by relatively excluded inhabitants of the city. Incorporating such experiences of the urban further illuminates that the growth of urban populations does not simply imply lifestyle preferences, which might contribute to well-being, but is also a response to social and economic necessities governing location and life course decisions. Overall, it is thus argued, that the internal geographies of large cities are of critical importance to understand variations in well-being both at the urban and neighbourhood scale.