Introduction

The idea of improving quality of life is present in most objectives for urban and development policies (Nakanishi, 2015, p. 71; Paprzyca, 2019) and is described as the ultimate goal of spatial governance (Bardhan et al., 2015, p. 56; Moroke et al., 2020, p. 107; Omar, 2006, p. 84; Rosenberg, 1965, p. 3). Even though quality of life is a noble normative construct, it has been suggested that it lamentably became a buzzword (Khalifa, 2019, p. 5300), often used to secure academic funding and societal influence (Cornwall, 2007, p. 471) diminishing it to a trite and meaningless phrase (Murgaš & Klobučník, 2016, p. 554). This may be attributed to its multifaceted nature and the subsequent complexity of practical implementation (Lo Piccolo & Thomas, 2009, p. 45).

The study of quality of life is primarily concerned with how social, economic, infrastructure, and environmental conditions affect human life (Kazemzadeh-Zow et al., 2018, p. 6096). Raphael et al., (1996, p. 367) explain this with three constructs: being, belonging, and becoming—individuals with certain physical, psychological, and spiritual components (being) interact with their physical, social, and communal environments (belonging) during the course of their daily activities (becoming) (Alvarez & Müller-Eie, 2017, p. 259; Raphael et al., 1996, p. 367). The combination of these constructs influences people’s “feelings of contentment” with their “experience of the world” (Andereck et al., 2007, p. 484), or their quality of life.

As may be inferred from the holistic nature of this description, the multidimensionality lends itself to different interpretations and applications within the quality of life discourse, depending on the research focus and discipline (Haslauer et al., 2015, p. 912; Moroke et al., 2018, p. 146). Thus, it is only appropriate to disclose the focus and discipline of the authors themselves. In accordance with the theme of multidimensionality, the authors of this paper represent a multidisciplinary team comprising the disciplines of human geography, urban planning, economic development, human health, and applied climatology. It is believed that the belonging tier, i.e., the spatial organization of people’s living environments, affects the being and becoming tiers by influencing people’s agency and control of resources (Bhattacharyya, 2004, p. 14; Onyx et al., 1992, p. 172; Qiao et al., 2019, p. 18). Since people’s living environments “shape the way they are able to live their lives” (Sapena et al., 2021), the focus of this paper lies primarily within the belonging tier.

The challenge, however, is to identify and understand the different types of communities living their lives within this belonging tier (O’Brien et al., 1989, p. 61), since the experience of the quality of life differs in association and meaning, depending on place and society (Nanor et al., 2018, p. 836). Marujo (2021, p. 198), therefore, advocates for “an ongoing commitment to the qualitative study of […] quality of life” to ultimately deepen “the understanding of the local context.” It is argued that this would require a multidisciplinary team who understand something of the different parts of the complex urban system, i.e., human capital, natural capital, social capital, and economic capital (Li et al., 2009, p. 134). Such a holistic understanding of the local context may enable different actors within this system (e.g., urban planners, economists, healthcare practitioners, and environmentalists) to utilize the knowledge to enhance quality of life.

In view of the context-specific nature of life quality research, this paper aims to investigate whether the association and meaning of African quality of life have been thoroughly described, as this continent is notorious for its low quality of life (Cash, 2014, p. 126; De Neve & Krekel, 2020, p. 50). In view of Africa’s rapid urbanization rates (OECD, 2020), the research is further focalized on urban Africa. It is argued that before the “quality of life in urban Africa” knowledge frontier may be further pushed, it is essential to understand where this frontier lies (Xiao & Watson, 2019, p. 93). To this end, a systematic literature review was conducted to determine the facets of quality of life considered as part of the research agenda in academic literature. The subsequent section provides a brief overview of the current views on life quality in urban Africa, followed by how quality of life is understood in the public and academic discourse, the research methodology, and research results.

Quality of Life in Urban Africa

In recent years, a large portion of scholarship has been focused on the quandary of low life quality in Africa, with many reasons provided for this, including inequality (Rigon et al., 2018, p. 419), unprecedented urbanization rates (Lynch et al., 2020, p. 1), informality, poverty (Lategan, 2017, pp. 252–253), and a failure to manage necessary structural transformation (Ebikemefa, 2020). The assumption of low levels of life quality in Africa is further strengthened by the primarily low quality of life scores for African countries included in the indexes, ranking life quality, for example, the Happy Planet Index (HPI) (HPI, 2022). In the 2020 HPI, the highest-ranked African countryFootnote 1 was Mauritius in 24th place and the lowest-ranked was Zimbabwe in 88th place out of 88 countries. It is, therefore, evident that African life quality differs significantly at country level. However, the calculated average score of the African countries included in the 2020 HPI is 44.3, corresponding with the HPI score for the country ranked in 61st place (i.e., Montenegro) out of 88 countries. This indicates a relatively low average for life quality in Africa.

Eloff (2020, p. 450), however, criticizes the current academic and public discourse about African quality of life as one-sided and advocates for a more balanced focus. She explains that lives that may be “regarded as privileged by some indicators” may well “be disadvantaged in many other ways” and likewise, “lives that may be regarded as disadvantaged, may also have embedded rewards” (Eloff, 2020). Further to this, numerous scholars (APA & UN-Habitat, 2013; Binns & Nel, 1999, p. 391; Nhemachena et al., 2011; Watson, 2016) have pointed out that research on the quality of life difficulties in Africa is not contextually focalized and conclusions are too often drawn from a Western viewpoint, without truly considering the unique African context.

African cities are considered “more unique than most” (Munzhedzi et al., 2016, p. 30), resulting from distinctive indigenous settlement traditions varying between the different regions (Pacione, 2009, p. 468). This was further diversified by the different histories and time-periods of international trade and colonization (Green, 2014). As a result of these diverse histories and the vastness of the continent, African countries have significant socio-economic, socio-cultural, and socio-political differences within and between the countries (Jacobs, 2019). The multifaceted nature of both the construct (quality of life) and the context (the diverse and heterogeneous nature of the African continent) combined with the researcher’s lens (their focus and discipline) may, moreover, easily forge a narrow and potentially biased perspective, producing one-sided research (focusing only on certain facets of the construct and context).

In view of this, researchers have called for a unique African planning philosophy, based on the unique and highly divergent African context (Corburn, 2003, p. 420; Cornelius et al., 2017, pp. 422,424). This paper argues that a thorough description of life quality in urban Africa may reveal these disadvantages and embedded rewards. It is, however, necessary to firstly understand the description already created by quality of life research in Africa, to enable researchers to build on existing research. The subsequent section, therefore, provides a concise overview of how the quality of life is measured in the public and academic discourse, followed by the methodology of this research and the research results.

Measuring Quality of Life

In keeping with the complex nature of the quality of life and the African context, a wide variety of measures to understand the quality of life exists (Fahy & Cinnéide, 2008, p. 284; Shekhar et al., 2019, p. 70). The approach to measuring the quality of life depends on the purpose of the enquiry and the philosophical paradigm from which the enquiry is made. Two main paradigms have been identified, namely the Hedonistic paradigm equating well-being and pleasure (Tiberius, 2014, pp. 7110–7112) and the Socratic paradigm considering a quality life as a mixture of different conditions and components (Michalos, 2014a, p. 226; 2014b, p. 4830). The idea of equating well-being and pleasure (Hedonistic paradigm) seems to omit an essential component of the quality of life, namely belonging that often stands independent of individual experiences such as pleasure (Tiberius, 2014, pp. 7110–7112). Conversely, the Socratic paradigm provides scope to explore the multifaceted components of the being, belonging, and becoming tiers of the quality of life. This paper, subsequently, aligns itself with the Socratic paradigm, since the belonging tier (the focus of this paper) refers, as previously noted, to the space where people live and is made up of various components influencing the quality of human life.

No consensus has been reached as to what these components influencing life quality explicitly entails. Amartya Sen proposed that a good life consists of resources, functionings, and capabilities (Binder & Coad, 2014). This approach, however, does not provide a precise list of components (Robeyns, 2005, pp. 192, 195), but has inspired various measurement approaches, e.g., Alkire (2008); Blaauw and Pretorius (2013); Robeyns (2005); and Verkerk et al. (2001). Currently, the most commonly used measurement for the quality of life is social indicators (Papageorgiou, 1976, p. 178; Stanca, 2018, p. 66; Wong, 2014, p. 1790). Social indicators are general indicators used as a starting point to explore social phenomena. Proponents of this measurement tool argue that it measures, simplifies, and communicates values and challenges of the local context (Beukes & Van Der Colff, 1997, p. 229; Darkey & Visagie, 2013, p. 303; Nakanishi, 2015, pp. 2,4). It has, however, also been criticized for oversimplifying the quality of life construct (Fahy & Cinnéide, 2006, p. 695), omitting important facets of the quality of life (Fahy & Cinnéide, 2008, p. 371), and excluding citizen priorities, since it is developed mainly by policy-makers (Nakanishi, 2015, p. 73).

Holistic social indicators, incorporating the ideas of both policy-makers and local citizens, may be found in Jacobs’ (2022) framework as presented in Fig. 1. The framework was created from a comprehensive doctoral study that firstly reviewed quality of life index reports, and then expanded the framework by analyzing legislation guiding spatial decision-making, and case study research conducted in South Africa. The framework may, therefore, serve the purpose of evaluating facets of the quality of life (social phenomena) included in the research agenda of academic literature. In view of this African lens, the framework is deemed appropriate for the purposes of this paper. To explore the currently available description of African life quality, this paper presents a systematic literature review of research (with a case study research methodology) that describes quality of life in urban Africa. The framework, presented in Fig. 1, will be used as a point of reference for data analysis.

Fig. 1
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Source: Created from Jacobs (2022)

A framework unpacking the quality of life indicators, developed through a thematic analysis of quality of life index reports, South African legislation guiding spatial decision-making, and case study research conducted in South Africa.

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Methodology of This Research

To investigate the extent to which case study research has described the quality of life in urban Africa, a systematic literature review was conducted following a textual narrative synthesis approach (Xiao & Watson, 2019, p. 95), as is depicted in Fig. 2. It allows characteristics within each piece of literature to be extracted, compared, and critiqued to ultimately depict the state of the current literature (Xiao & Watson, 2019, p. 95).

Fig. 2
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A flow diagram outlining the systematic steps of conducting the literature review

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Textual Narrative Synthesis

The textual narrative synthesis involved systematically extracting the facets of the quality of life (Fig. 1) that was studied within each of the identified literature (refer to sections below for more detailed methods). Xiao and Watson (2019, p.95) explain that this approach is more rigorous than a standard narrative review, since it requires categorizing the identified literature into similar groups (the quality of life facets in this case) and then comparing their similarities and differences based on the extracted data. The synthesis also included quantifying the number of studies conducted within the African continent and providing commentary on the strength of the available quality of life knowledge in literature (Xiao & Watson, 2019, p. 95).

Literature Collection Methods

Peer-reviewed publications in academic journals were systematically gathered during 2020 and 2021 using the Scopus database. Even though there is a considerable body of knowledge available in gray literature on this topic, this paper focuses specifically on the current academic discourse. The keywords used for the search were as follows: quality of life combined respectively with, cities, city planning, community planning, development, economic development, informal settlements, physical environment, planning, settlement, spatial development, spatial planning, sustainable planning, urban, urban development, and urban planning. The first 50 papers from each keyword search, amounting to a total number of 600 papers, were filtered for inclusion. All literature was included, regardless of publication date. The gathered literature was further filtered, in three phases, through inductive coding in ATLAS.ti (Friese, 2012, p. 2).

First Phase Literature Inclusion Criteria: Quality of Life in the Spatial Dimension

The identified literature was filtered by title, abstract, and keywords, to identify those inquiring specifically about quality of life in the spatial dimension. The literature was limited to papers written in English and available English abstracts of papers written in another language. The gathered literature was, subsequently, reduced to a number of 215 papers.

Second Phase Literature Inclusion Criteria: Case Study Research Methodology

The literature was then filtered to only include those following a case study research methodology. It is argued that case study research may well disclose the associations and meanings of life quality within different places and societies. Its detailed examination of phenomena connected to a particular context (Farthing, 2016, p. 116; MacCallum et al., 2019, p. 46) affords access to the multiple wealth of details and nuances within the complex reality (Flyvbjerg, 2006, pp. 2–6,21). It furthermore offers, the opportunity to critically engage with, and generate, theories explaining this complex reality (Duminy et al., 2014, p. 1; Yin, 2018). It is, therefore, argued that the normative conclusions, “rooted in the details of a ‘place’” (De Satgé & Watson, 2018, p. 24) from various case studies may ultimately create a thorough description of case study research and restore meaning to the construct of life quality.

To determine whether case study research was used, the research question and/or objective was firstly reviewed to discover if the quality of life (or a facet thereof) was explored within an individual case(s). In some of the identified literature, the methods section explicitly outlined it as case study research and in others the authors conveyed their purpose as understanding the particular case. Lastly, the sampling strategy was reviewed to determine the reasoning behind how and why the specific case(s) were chosen.

The gathered literature was, subsequently, reduced to a number of 159 papers.

Third Phase Inclusion Criteria: African Cases

Those papers using a case study research methodology were further coded according to the location of the researched cases. Subsequently, the literature was reduced to a number of 9 papers considering an African case(s).

Literature Analysis

A summative content analysis (Cohen et al., 2018, p. 674) was then employed to explore the current understanding within the sampled texts of life quality in urban Africa. The research themes and findings of identified papers studying cases in Africa were identified, narratively summarized and tabulated. Furthermore, these were correlated with Jacobs’s (2022) framework, as presented in Fig. 1.

Iterations

After the coding process was concluded, the codes attributed to the literature were reviewed in order to ensure rigorous research results.

Results and Discussion

African Quality of Life: Where Do We Know?

The majority of the analyzed papers used case study research for their inquiry, as illustrated in Fig. 3. It is argued that this use of case study research makes sense, since, as previously noted, life quality is highly dependent on the context, and case study research may allow for a better understanding of the complex nuances regarding life quality in the real world. However, as presented in Fig. 3, from the analyzed sample only 12 African cases in 4 African countries were explored in 9 papers.

Fig. 3
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A summary of the papers identified during the literature review, including the only 12 case studies that focus on the African continent

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It may, therefore, be argued that this limited number of case study research strengthens the case for critics of the current African life quality discourse, averring that research in this region is often one-sided and not contextually focused. As argued in Sect. 2, research is usually done from a specific perspective (the researcher’s focus and discipline) and even though the construct (quality of life) and context (the diverse and heterogeneous African continent) are multifaceted, a single study usually focuses only on specific facets of the construct and context.

Case study research may well produce a greater understanding of the association and meaning of the quality of life within the highly diverse urban Africa from which well-grounded claims may be made. An extensive description of life quality in Africa may enable informed decisions regarding the spatial organization of African societies. This is especially regarded as necessary, since the construct of life quality is, unsurprisingly, present in most urban and development policies, frameworks, and guidelines. The question remains though, whether the association and meaning of life quality in the African context have been sufficiently described to warrant a true understanding thereof.

Figure 4 illustrates the locations where the identified African case study research was conducted, along with where the ten largest African cities are situated, the population density within Africa, and the African countries where English is an official language, since the study was limited to research conducted in English. Further to this, Fig. 4 visually presents the research themes and the quality of life dimensions included in the analyzed sample.

Fig. 4
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The location and focus of quality of life case study research in Africa identified during the systematic literature review

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The case study research may produce a broad overview of the meaning and association of the quality of life, but a quite sparsely distributed description from the analyzed sample of literature is evident in Fig. 4. This sporadic nature may not disclose the nuances within the different places and societies of urban Africa and may, furthermore, indicate that the belonging tier of life quality for a large part of Africa has not thoroughly been described. Most of the largest African cities were not included in the sample of case study research, i.e., Ibadan, Lagos, and Kano in Nigeria, and Cape Town in South Africa. Figure 4 also indicates that large parts of English-speaking Africa with high population density are not included in the identified sample of case study research. These include parts of Nigeria, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya.

It is, furthermore, evident that the research themes are also sparsely spread across English-speaking South Africa. Even though some themes repeat, it may be argued that the variety of themes further disperse what we do know of the quality of life within urban Africa. Additionally, not all the dimensions of the quality of life are considered in all the cases. Economic capital and the physical space are considered in all cases; social capital is considered in all cases except in Cairo; the institutional context is considered in all cases except in Addis Ababa; human capital is not considered in the cases of Cairo and Klerksdorp; the individual experience is not considered in the cases of Cairo and Klerksdorp; and natural capital is not considered in the cases of Addis Ababa, Johannesburg, and Bloemfontein. The cases of Johannesburg and Durban were included in two separate studies. This allowed for more of the quality of life dimensions to be considered. In the cases of Johannesburg, for example, one study did not include natural capital, but this was captured by the other study.

The following section explores the contribution to knowledge about African quality of life made by the identified case study research.

African Quality of Life: What Do We Know?

Since Africa is a vast, exceedingly diverse and heterogeneous continent, with many socio-economic, socio-cultural, and socio-physical variations, it is argued that an extensive description of life quality in this region is necessary to truly understand the association and meaning of urban life quality in Africa. To further explore the research agenda from the analyzed sample, their research themes, the quality of life indicators considered in the research agendas and their context-specific conclusions are presented in Table 1. This may serve to elucidate some facets of the quality of life that have been described regarding urban Africa.

Table 1 A summary of the research agenda, the quality of life indicators considered as part of the research agenda and the context-specific conclusions of each case identified during the literature review
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To understand the extent of what we do know of African life quality, Table 1 indicates which of the social indicators from Jacobs’ framework (refer to Fig. 1) have been considered as part of the research agenda of the identified papers. Most of the indicators are to a more or lesser extent included in the studies—the only absent indicators are wealth, knowledge, social trust, climate change, historic development patterns, and stability. Four of the indicators, namely income, mobility, housing, and spatial organization were included in some cases within all four countries. We suggest that the indicators proposed by the Jacobs framework may serve to strengthen cohesiveness within the research agenda on quality of life. For instance, in Table 1 it is evident from the context-specific findings highlighted by Darkey and Visagie (2013) that, although not explicitly mentioned as such, stability, social trust, and knowledge are important aspects influencing quality of life in Mamelodi. Violent protests and corruption, highlighted as problems by the community, point to larger issues relating to a lack of stability and social and institutional trust. These indicators may provide a common language for researchers working in this field to explicitly name and identify that which is at present only implied in the context-specific conclusions discussed.

As discussed earlier, the multifaceted nature of the quality of life lends itself to different focuses within the broader quality of life discourse, depending on the research purpose and discipline. Therefore, the identified papers also explore different research themes, and focus their conclusions and recommendations on various facets of the belonging tier. These themes include (1) quality of life and spatial planning in Cairo and Klerksdorp; (2) understanding the individual experience of the quality of life in Addis Ababa, Pretoria, Johannesburg, East London, and Durban; (3) understanding objective quality of life in Kumasi, Bloemfontein, and Durban; and (4) understanding the effect of objective quality of life on subjective quality of life in Johannesburg.

In many cases, especially the South African ones, the studies were demarcated specifically to informal settlements or explicitly focused on the black communities. In view of the highly heterogeneous nature of urban Africa, it is argued that such specific demarcations during case study research may enable a more in-depth representation of a certain facet of urban life quality in Africa. When numerous similar studies are conducted that focus on different demarcations, it may provide a more nuanced representation of life quality in urban Africa. It may, however, be noted that the papers mainly either provide recommendations for decision-making or provide a discussion of the quality of life status quo within the given area.

Conclusion

The quality of life is a highly context-driven and multifaceted construct, making it exceedingly complex and difficult to define. For spatial governance, concerned with organizing space, the focus is usually on the influence of the physical environment on people’s quality of life. This is used as a directive in most urban and development policies but is also criticized as being used as a buzzword, curtailing it to a generic rather than an uplifting and empowering measure. In view of the quality of life’s differentiation in association and meaning, depending on the context, this paper focused on the current academic discourse about African urban quality of life. Africa is notorious for its low levels of life quality and many scholars have offered possible causes for this, but there is also criticism from various quarters that the African context is not thoroughly understood and that the continent is evaluated from a narrow perspective. It is also argued that these evaluations are further complicated by the highly divergent and heterogeneous nature of the continent. To evaluate this claim, case study research with a spatial focus in Africa was investigated according to location, research theme, and context-specific conclusions.

Based on this process, we formulate the answer to our research question, namely what we know about quality of life in urban Africa. What we know is that quality of life research is limited and that there is not an overarching consensus or focus to quality of life studies in urban Africa. Only 9 relevant studies were identified from the systematic literature review. The geographic spread of this research is exceedingly restricted, with case studies omitting most of Africa’s largest and densely populated cities. Evaluating these studies according to the Jacobs framework (2022), we find that important social indicators of quality of life, such as wealth, knowledge, social trust, historic development patterns and stability, are often omitted from the research. Therefore, the nuance of the reality of the investigated cities is missed, making the outcome too simplistic in its review. Furthermore, 9 case studies over a 25-year period fail to appreciate the fluidity of changing landscapes, since environment exposures are not static. In practice, such meager focus may exclude important and relevant context-specific policy insights.

Therefore, even though the identified African case study research provides exceedingly important contributions towards creating a fair and balanced representation of the quality of life in urban Africa, it is argued that an urgent need exists for a more widespread and in-depth investigation. The results revealed limited cases, in a restricted number of regions, with clusters of research themes and quality of life indicators; different spatial demarcations; and mostly context-specific recommendations. It is suggested that this sparsely distributed knowledge base may produce a limited perspective on the quality of life in urban Africa. Additionally, the undefined nature of the quality of life makes it challenging to compare case studies with each other, resulting in a further dispersion of the knowledge base of African quality of life.

It is emphasized that the multifaceted and undefined nature of the quality of life renders quality of life research exceedingly complex and diverse. Creating a fair and balanced representation of the life quality in urban Africa is, therefore, no small feat. Considering the directive role the quality of life holds in spatial governance, it is proposed that more quality of life case study research be conducted throughout the African continent in different settlement typologies, amongst different population groups, with different research themes, and a focus on various quality of life indicators. This may enable a thorough and realistic understanding of the unique challenges and complexities of African urban quality of life and may also create a broader accepted definition of the quality of life in urban Africa. It is argued that this will allow for a comparison of African case study research and, subsequently, enable spatial decision-makers to offer appropriate and African-specific urban and developmental measurements to ultimately improve the quality of life in urban Africa.

In conclusion, this paper highlights the limited nature of the academic discourse about the association and meaning of quality of life in urban Africa. Further to this, the paper underscores the multifaceted nature of quality of life acknowledging the interplay of economic development, socio-economic factors, environmental conditions, strategic planning, and sustainable development. Recognizing the gaps in understanding and appreciating the diverse African context and quality of life indicators, future research may guide policymakers in creating more effective and context-specific policies. Additionally, future research may expand on this paper to explore the linkages and contrasts between the academic quality of life discourse, gray literature, and the existing policy environment.