Utility Method as an Instrument of the Quality of Life Assessment Using the Examples of Selected European Cities

Abstract

Improving quality of life still remains the main goal of strategic documents and is promoted by leaders on the global, national, regional, and local levels. Moreover, this ambitious challenge should be consistent with the principles of sustainable development, including the social, economic, and environmental aspects. The ISO 37120 indicators within the World Council on City Data (WCCD) database may be used to monitor the urban performance over time. However, the interpretation of the results is not always easy and sometimes requires a complex analysis. The aim of this paper was to investigate the possibility of illustrating in a transparent way the urban quality of life using the utility method. This study also presents that this method may facilitate making data-driven decisions on urban management, planning and investment. Thus, it may be useful for decision makers and help cities and communities of all sizes to become more sustainable, safe and resilient, prosperous, inclusive, and smart. The analysis has been carried out using the examples of selected European cities: Amsterdam, Gdynia, London, and Zagreb. The hypothesis reads as follows: it is possible to use the total and partial utility method in order to assess the level of urban quality of life with regard to the three dimensions of sustainable development in order to monitor progress and results and prioritize and implement the changes within urban policy. Research results indicate that there are significant differences between the compared cities within the economic, social, and ecological aspects. This analysis may constitute an introduction to the development of more complex models in the future.

Application of Open Government Data to Sustainable City Indicators: A Megacity Case Study

“…On the other hand, as discussed in Section 2.1.2, some authors present studies from quantitative indicator surveys, not necessarily of the entire ISO 3712x series, of Polish [26], Italian [27], European [50], and Artic [24] cities. Those authors elaborated on important critical analyses, such as in [23], on the insufficiency of data to cover the full range of activities in most cities.…”

“…These authors undertook important critical analysis [23], using cases of cities such as London, Boston, New York, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Barcelona. The ISO 37120 indicators in the WCCD were also analyzed by [50], for Amsterdam, Gdynia, London, and Zagreb. Some authors presented quantitative indicator studies (not necessarily of the entire ISO 3712x series), such as [26], which investigated 276 cities in Poland, applying questionnaires to assess the quality of life based on ISO 37120 indicators.…”

How Cities Study Quality of Life and Use This Information: Results of an Empirical Study

“…Cities, as units of local government, should be interested in obtaining as much information as possible regarding both objective and subjective quality of life assessments [1,5,27,[33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40]61]. This information, when properly processed and analyzed, can be used to take action in the various spheres of city activity.…”

“…To date, these surveys have mainly been used to assess residents' satisfaction, evaluate the city government's performance and determine indicators [31][32][33][34]. A review of the recent publications on quality-of-life surveys did not confirm that the information obtained was used to make decisions and actions aimed at sustainable urban development [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]. Thus, a cognitive gap can be seen regarding the use of information obtained from residents in the context of sustainable development.…”

Quality of Life Surveys as a Method of Obtaining Data for Sustainable City Development—Results of Empirical Research

“…In recent years, there have been many publications on the study of the quality of life in cities [31,[64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71]. However, the literature review did not show that the data obtained from the quality of life survey were used for the sustainable development of the city.…”