Capabilities and Beyond: Towards an Operationalization of Eudaimonic Well-Being in a Public Space Context

Abstract

In this chapter I discuss and attempt to operationalize the concept of human well-being in cities based on the Aristotelian view of human flourishing (eudaimonia) and elements of Martha Nussbaum’s capability approach, in the context of public space – viewed through the lenses of the theory of affordances. This operationalization may be used to evaluate the potential of public spaces (both actual and planned) to sustain human flourishing – an alternative to valuation models driven by instrumental rationality, such as cost-benefit analysis.I use the ten human capabilities identified by Martha Nussbaum to map the central dimensions of eudaimonic well-being and ask: What kind of spatial/functional and social affordances need to be granted by a given urban agriculture project to sustain the well-being dimensions indicated by each of the capabilities? Further, I extend the operationalization with the consideration of virtues (moral and intellectual excellences) – which is largely absent in capability scholarship. I ask: What kind of virtues can be linked to each of the ten central capabilities, and what kind of spatial/functional and social affordances would support the cultivation of these virtues?By problematizing eudaimonic well-being in cities, this chapter contributes to a growing discussion on the relationship between the qualities of the built environment and human well-being. This research typically focuses on the range of pathways through which the built environment may affect human well-being, not on its operationalization, and adopts a hedonic view of human well-being in an implicit way. I argue that the distinction between eudaimonic and hedonic well-being needs to be pronounced more clearly in urban research and more attention needs to be paid to the eudaimonic well-being construct which is much more concerned with the achievement of full human potential than the hedonic models.