City Life: Rankings (Livability) Versus Perceptions (Satisfaction)

I investigate the relationship between the popular Mercer city ranking (livability) and survey data (satisfactions). Livability aims to capture objective quality of life such as infrastructure. Survey items capture subjective quality of life such as satisfaction with city. The relationship between objective measures of quality of life and subjective measures is weak (correlation of about 0.4). Trust is highly correlated with both, objective livability (0.8) and subjective satisfaction with city (0.65). I postulate to pay more attention to subjective indicators of quality of life. After all, what matters is what we perceive, not what is out there.

[1]  Robert D. Putnam,et al.  Bowling alone: the collapse and revival of American community , 2000, CSCW '00.

[2]  D. Kahneman,et al.  Back to Bentham? Explorations of experience utility , 1997 .

[3]  Ruut Veenhoven,et al.  The cross-national pattern of happiness: Test of predictions implied in three theories of happiness , 1995 .

[4]  Stephen F. Knack,et al.  Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation , 1997 .

[5]  D. Kahneman,et al.  Does Living in California Make People Happy? A Focusing Illusion in Judgments of Life Satisfaction , 1998 .

[6]  Nihal Şenlier,et al.  A Perception Survey for the Evaluation of Urban Quality of Life in Kocaeli and a Comparison of the Life Satisfaction with the European Cities , 2009 .

[7]  R. Inglehart.  Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic, and Political Change in 43 Societies , 1997 .

[8]  N. Christakis,et al.  Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network: longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham Heart Study , 2008, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[9]  A. Maslow.  Motivation and Personality , 1954 .

[10]  A. Balducci,et al.  Happiness and Quality of City Life: The Case of Milan, the Richest Italian City , 2009 .

[11]  David Laibson,et al.  Experienced Utility and Objective Happiness: A Moment-Based Approach , 2001 .

[12]  R. Florida,et al.  The Happiness of Cities , 2013 .

[13]  S. Lyubomirsky,et al.  The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success? , 2005, Psychological bulletin.

[14]  Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn,et al.  Geography of European Life Satisfaction , 2011 .

[15]  Bill Bishop,et al.  The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart , 2008 .

[16]  E. Diener,et al.  MEASURING QUALITY OF LIFE: ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, AND SUBJECTIVE INDICATORS , 1997 .

[17]  A. Tversky,et al.  Choices, Values, and Frames , 2000 .

[18]  E. Glaeser.  Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier (an excerpt) (translated by Innа Kushnareva) , 2011 .

[19]  The Quality of Life in Large American Cities: Objective and Subjective Social Indicators , 1975 .

[20]  Robert A. Cummins,et al.  Objective and Subjective Auality of Life: an Interactive Model , 2000 .

[21]  D. Kahneman,et al.  Developments in the Measurement of Subjective Well-Being , 2006 .

[22]  J. Stiglitz,et al.  Report by the commission on the measurement of economic performance and social progress , 2011 .

[23]  Richard Burger.  European Research Area , 2007 .

[24]  F. Heukamp,et al.  Does Country Matter for Subjective Well-Being? , 2011 .

[25]  R. Putnam,et al.  E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty‐first Century The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture , 2007 .