Philip S. Morrison (p)

Finbarr Brereton

The urban wellbeing paradox refers to the fact that while agglomeration generates both production and consumption economies, the average subjective wellbeing of residents in the largest agglomerations of developed, mainly western, countries is often lower than the rest of the country. Higher levels of congestion, pollution, house prices and crime are partly to blame but the primary driver is the uneven distribution of the benefits of urban growth on a heterogeneous labour force.
Spatial agglomeration increases the returns to skill (to university graduates) but these advantages depress the relative wellbeing of the less formally educated. While the proportion with tertiary education is substantially higher in large metropolitan centres graduates still constitute a minority therein. Although the higher population density and the rich infrastructure of metropolitan centres raises the productivity of the tertiary educated minority, the wellbeing of the majority may be dampened by their residence in poorer neighbourhoods with their longer commutes and lower levels of social engagement. It is this lower wellbeing of the majority in large cities which reduces the metropolitan average and gives rise to the urban wellbeing paradox. Empirical support for the argument comes from a multivariate analysis of the 2012 European Social Survey.

Martijn Burger (p)

Philip S. Morrison

Although more and more people choose to live in cities, subjective well-being (SWB) is generally lower in large urban areas in the Western world. This article examines to what extent urban-rural differences in SWB are driven by differences in the quality and affordability of housing between the largest cities and peri-urban and rural areas. Using a Dutch panel database, linking characteristics of housing to SWB, we show that differences in housing tenure, housing and neighborhood quality and housing affordability can partly explain the urban-rural SWB differential in the Netherlands.

Mehmet Güney Celbiş, Pui Hang Wong (p), Karima Kourtit, Peter NIjkamp

Martijn Burger

Labor market dynamics is shaped by various social, psychological and economic drivers. This study examines the determinants of job satisfaction using a large survey data, namely the LISS Work and Schooling module on an extensive sample of persons from the Netherlands. To handle these big data machine learning models based on binary recursive partitioning algorithms are employed. Particularly, sequential and randomized tree-based techniques are used for prediction and clustering purposes. In order to interpret the results, the study calculates the sizes and directions of the effects of model features using computations based on cooperative game theory. The findings suggest that satisfaction with the social atmosphere among colleagues, wage satisfaction, and feeling of being appreciated are major determinants of job satisfaction.

Zeynep Elburz

The quality of life takes place at the focus of sustainable development, when social equity gained importance among 3 E’s as related to social justice and equality. However, the urban quality of life research addresses other social aspects such as the inhabitancy, safety feeling and trust in the living environment. Accordingly, longer duration of residence may result from higher satisfaction in the built environment, when social ties and satisfaction with social relations can lengthen inhabitancy. Relations with neighbors play as a social support mechanism, which increase the sense of belonging to the place and community. The security feeling determines life satisfaction and livability in the housing and its environment. Satisfaction with relations and/or the social life in neighborhood can lead a general increase in the urban quality of life.
In this context, this study aims to evaluate social capital in neighborhoods across city. Then, how social capital relates to life and built environment satisfaction is under scrutiny. Another comparison is between social capital and income level. In other words, this study attempts to measure the “body” and the “soul” through a social capital and its relationship with the built environment. The study has developed a “Social Capital” index (SCI), which encompasses 4 sub-indexes as: a) “social support/solidarity” (SSS) b) “security/trust” (ST) c) “social inclusion/tolerance” (SIT) and “inhabitance and sense of belonging” (ISB) sub-indexes.
To determine the weights of sub-indexes an expert research conducted through Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). According to expert’s scores, the lowest weight belongs to the ISB sub-index (0,211), which follows SSS (0,246), SIT (0,246) and ST (0,296) sub-indexes, respectively. Konya city, which is located in the middle of Türkiye, acted as the research area for the household survey with 1171 questionnaires. Accordingly, the security/trust does not only relate to social inclusion/tolerance and social support/ solidarity, but also to the satisfaction with life and the built environment. Social support/ solidarity was related with inhabitancy/sense of belonging. Although household income had positive correlation with life satisfaction, its association with social support/solidarity and inhabitancy/sense of belonging was inversely and weak. Moreover, the SCI had the higher values mostly in the new and modern neighbors of the city and mostly in peripheries, while it decreases in the inner and older parts of the city. Despite, the ISB index was higher in the older parts of the city, i.e. near the city center.

Paolo Veneri (p), Nicola Pontarollo

This paper aims to contribute to the identification of the drivers of city dwellers’ subjective well-being by exploiting micro-data on individuals’ life satisfaction combined with cross-sectional differences in physical, environmental, and socio-economic conditions across European cities. In doing so, this study should help shed light on the reasons underlying the urban well-being paradox. We consider four different explanations for such a paradox. First, agglomeration can be a source of negative externalities captured by subjective well-being. According to this view, negative agglomeration externalities might more than offset the well-documented benefits of agglomeration – such as easier and more efficient access to jobs, higher productivity, and income, among others – which results in a lower overall subjective well-being among city dwellers. If this is the case, part of the “unhappiness” of cities could be captured by city-level characteristics, such as congestion, environmental quality, crime, and presence/absence of amenities, among others. A second reason for the urban well-being paradox is connected to the self-selection of less happy individuals in cities. In turn, this might have different explanations, from objective worse circumstances in cities to cultural aspects (i.e., to idiosyncratic sources of happiness in city living). A third explanation, partially linked to the previous one, is related to the heterogeneity of city population combined with different willingness to migrate by the various population segments (see Morrison, 2020). According to this view, a relatively small share of very mobile people drives the rural-urban migration and the observed continuous growth of cities. Larger shares of incumbent city residents are less satisfied although they have more constraints to change location. As a result, the average life satisfaction in cities can be lower than what observed elsewhere, even in cities which are growing. Finally, the idea of spatial equilibrium can be another effective explanation on why we observe lower levels of life satisfaction in cities compared to rural areas. More specifically, reconciling the urban well-being paradox with spatial equilibrium would require treating life satisfaction as an argument of the individuals’ utility function – thus as a type of amenity – rather than as a proxy of utility (Glaeser et al., 2016; Chauvin et al., 2017). In the analytical framework of this study, such an assumption would be consistent with a negative relationship between life satisfaction and real income across European cities (in the long run, more happiness should compensate for lower economic prospects).

Finbarr Brereton (p), Anna Onida

Arzu Taylan Susan

This paper aims at systematically reviewing published research on blue spaces and well-being in the European Union. The review shows how there is a growing amount of research on how natural environments, particularly parks and forests, are important assets to public health. However, the effects of blue spaces on well-being are still underexplored. Studies were selected through online databases and chosen based on their relevance to different types of well-being and exposure to blue environments. The heterogeneous results show that there are still some discrepancies on how public health is affected by water exposure. The analysis shows that active exposure, like swimming in the sea, has been extremely beneficial to well-being and mental health. However, less coherent information is given on how passive exposure, as in relaxing on the beach or walking alongside water, is affecting health. Public health is also affected by other determinants, such as accessibility to facilities, availability of clean bathing sites, conservation of nature and more. EU Environmental Policy, through the Bathing Water Directive, is crucial to maintaining high water quality standards and tries to mend these different factors to maximise health benefits and use blue spaces as tools to tackle climate change. The review shows that the BlueHealth project aims at merging these components together and finding solutions to improve and preserve blue infrastructures throughout urban spaces, especially in deprived neighbourhoods.