Climate change and increasing urbanization are part of a set of elements that have led governments to adopt increasingly complex initiatives to provide their citizens a good quality of life, prosperity, social and... [ view full abstract ]
Climate change and increasing urbanization are part of a set of elements that have led governments to adopt increasingly complex initiatives to provide their citizens a good quality of life, prosperity, social and environmental well-being. Among these initiatives, improvements in infrastructure and urban services as well as environment concerns are the most visible examples of this new reality in several metropolitan areas around the world. The discussion of sustainable development when it comes to cities has gained increasing official recognition. Despite of the recognition of its importance, the sustainable city concept is misleading. Sustainable cities have as their main challenge the adoption of sustainable polices that alleviate negative impacts and can become strategies for regeneration, as well as affect natural ecosystems. These polices will also need to be simple, integrated, cost-effective and resource efficient, and should have an impact not only on environmental sustainability goals, but also on economic and social issues, such as citizens’ quality of life and sense of community. This paper sought to evaluate the perception of quality of live and the sense of community, according to sustainable city concept. The research analyzed interviews with 392 residents of five cities from a same micro-region in southern Brazil, through quantitative techniques, such as factorial analysis, linear regression and variance analysis. The research identified three factors for quality of life perception: infrastructure and public services, job situation, and environmental conditions. Two factors - infrastructure and public services and; job situation – are significantly related to the sense of community. The respondents' overall perception showed that: (i) 44% do not feel safe in the city, but when considering the neighborhood, this number decreases to 31%; (ii) 61% consider that the city is not committed to fighting against climate change; and (iii) 37% of respondents agree that people in the city cannot be trusted. From a sustainable city perspective, the research concludes that: (i) policies sustainable city purposes should include the sense of community perception; (ii) policies should be proposed from the neighborhood perspective, due to the higher presence of trust in comparison with the city level; (iii) the design of the neighborhood should privilege social interactions, in order to facilitate policies implementation. According to our results, meeting these criteria through public policies would boost quality of life, creating a fruitful land for sustainable city development. Finally, the study provides relevant information for social researchers and urban planners by identifying factors that influence citizen’s perceptions on quality of life and sense of community and providing elements for political and academic debate.
Keywords: Quality of life, Sense of community, Sustainable city, Satisfaction with life.
8b. Health and well-being
