Towards the Development of Quality of Life Indicators in the ‘Digital’ City

Massimo Craglia, Lila Leontidou, Giampaolo Nuvolati and Jürgen Schweikart
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Massimo Craglia: Department of Town and Regional Planning, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, England
Lila Leontidou: Unit of Geography and European Culture, Hellenic Open University, 11 - 13 Ravine Street, 11521 Athens, Greece
Giampaolo Nuvolati: Department of Sociology, University of Milan “Bicocca†, Building U7, Via Bicocca degli Arcimboldi 8, 20126 Milan, Italy
Jürgen Schweikart: University of Applied Sciences Berlin FB III, Luxemburger-Strasse 10, 13353 Berlin, Germany

Environment and Planning B, 2004, vol. 31, issue 1, 51-64

Abstract: Cities are central to the economic and social development of European society, not only because over 80% of European citizens live in urban areas, but also because cities are at the same time centres of production, innovation, employment, and culture, and loci of segregation, deprivation, and ethnic conflict. The emergence of a European-wide urban policy, has given new impetus to the need for comparable indicators of the quality of life to monitor development and policy implementation. This paper reviews the literature on quality of life indicators, and argues that traditional measures of the quality of life need to be supplemented with two new dimensions that reflect more recent postmodernist thinking about the composition of urban landscapes, and the contribution to the quality of life of the emerging information society. We argue that the challenges of building appropriate indicators reflecting these new dimensions are considerable, even in urban environments so rich in information systems and data sources, if they are to qualify as ‘digital cities’. There are difficulties in finding common workable definitions of the indicators themselves, as well as definitions of the relevant populations, including city residents, and users. By raising these issues and suggesting possible avenues for addressing these challenges we contribute to a much-needed debate on how to define such indicators, which is the prerequisite for their development and use.

Date: 2004
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envirb:v:31:y:2004:i:1:p:51-64

DOI: 10.1068/b12918

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