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Urban Design and Quality of Life

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Book cover Handbook of Environmental Psychology and Quality of Life Research

Part of the book series: International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life ((IHQL))

Abstract

This chapter deals with those aspects of the design of cities that have been shown to affect quality of life. Whilst direct causal relationships between physical space and well-being are often difficult to establish, physical space certainly does play a significant part in shaping the way we engage with it, informing the individual and collective sense of attachment to our own environment. This will become increasingly important, with the urbanization process predicted to grow, a significant part of which in conditions of informality. The aim of this chapter is to gather relevant and recent research that highlights advances in the study of the reciprocal effect between urban form and urban life and use this to compile an agenda for future thinking, research and practice in the field of socially sustainable urban design.

The thrust of this agenda is centered on the concept of control. Since urbanization is an ongoing phenomenon and life in cities is now the norm for the vast majority of people, the traditional role of design needs to be reconsidered to give way to more collaborative and flexible forms of conceptualization, creation, occupation and management of space. This is important in order to relieve pressure on land and institutions, and instill an overall proactive and reciprocal attitude towards space itself, and space as a form of collective and social life.

The chapter will highlight that urban quality of life can be described through on four core themes of: material well-being; emotional and personal development; interpersonal relationships; and physical well-being. These themes provide an organizational framework for exploration of how they are manifest at the metropolitan, neighbourhood and pedestrian levels of scale.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Architecture, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

    Ombretta Romice, Sergio Porta, Gordon Barbour & Paola Pasino

  2. Department of Landscape, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Kevin Thwaites

  3. Mark Greaves Urbanism, Glasgow, UK

    Mark Greaves

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  1. Ombretta Romice
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  2. Kevin Thwaites
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  3. Sergio Porta
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  4. Mark Greaves
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  5. Gordon Barbour
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  6. Paola Pasino
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Correspondence to Ombretta Romice .

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  1. Faculty of Psychology, University of Nantes, Nantes, France

    Ghozlane Fleury-Bahi

  2. Department of Social Psychology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Enric Pol

  3. Faculty of Psychology, University of Nantes, Nantes, France

    Oscar Navarro

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Romice, O., Thwaites, K., Porta, S., Greaves, M., Barbour, G., Pasino, P. (2017). Urban Design and Quality of Life. In: Fleury-Bahi, G., Pol, E., Navarro, O. (eds) Handbook of Environmental Psychology and Quality of Life Research. International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31416-7_14

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