Quality of life: first things first

"We need more open space, less traffic, better and cheaper public transport...
A Londoner that actually works!"
A Londoner

Cost of living and personal safety: the two fundamentals

City dwellers are unanimous: personal and property safety is a key condition defining quality of life. Mexico City, Los Angeles, London, New York, Chicago, Sydney... safety is seen everywhere as the sine qua non for living well.

The cost of living is perceived as equally important. What is the good of having a decent quality of life if you do not have the economic means to access it ? This concern needs to be viewed against the weight of housing in the family budget.

This concern is most forcefully expressed in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Alexandria, Sydney, Berlin and Prague.

This dual concern of all city dwellers is echoed in their definition of the priority actions they expect to be implemented to improve living conditions in the city.
The lowering of the cost of living is the number one priority of 50% of city dwellers, especially in Paris, Lyon and New York.

Completely logically, lowering the unemployment rate is a major concern for one quarter of respondents, especially those in Berlin, Mexico City and Alexandria.

The desire for a greater level of personal safety comes immediately behind, ranging up to 49% in Mexico City and 43% in London. This aspiration is in particular expressed by the over 35-year olds.

For most city dwellers, all cities combined, the quality of life depends first and foremost on the cost of living and safety.
In the wake of these fundamentals, the respondents mention other aspects that make their lives more bearable: the quality of the environment, the quality of infrastructure, public transportation, etc.
And lastly, factors such as access to cultural and leisure activities.

The next most important priority: the environment

Only after these two minimum conditions have been stated, one might even go so far as to say once the respondents have got them off their chest, do city dwellers talk about their expectations regarding their environment and factors that make their lives easier or more enjoyable.Of these expectations, the criteria they put forward reflect differing local preferences, but the demand is always stated with the same force.

At the top of these criteria: the environment is seen as an essential parameter for the quality of urban living.
This is particularly true of Shanghai and Beijing, where it is referred to by 50% and 45% of the population respectively, and especially by the younger respondents.

More than one third of people living in Alexandria mention the quality of public transportation and the cleanness of streets; for more than half of the inhabitants of Tokyo, it is the ability to get out of the city easily; one Parisian out of five mentions noise and housing availability; nearly one third in Lyon refer to ease of travel. Economic dynamism, referred to less elsewhere, comes through as an essential criteria in the Asian cities.

Views on the environment are ambivalent: for example, while almost 60% of city dwellers think thatwater quality will improve and that cities will have more open spaces in the future,many doubt that there will be an overall improvement in the urban environment (just 44% think there will).

There is far less agreement where public transportation is concerned: 46% of city dwellers have reservations about this issue, with concern affecting 50% of the population in Chicago, London, Sydney and Alexandria, and 76% in Mexico City.

"Air quality and noise are important issues in the city. But first of all you have to be able to afford A Parisian to live there, pay your rent..."A Parisian

Rightful optimism...

Access to culture, consumption and leisure is a highly appreciated aspect of quality of life, quoted by one out of five city dwellers. While they may not have as much time as they would like to enjoy the activities on offer, city dwellers still see their existence as a positive factor in their urban space, contributing in particular to their city's international renown. Also, these aspects have significant pulling power for people who have just settled in the city.

A city's ability to meet its inhabitants' consumer and entertainment needs is perceived with greater confidence. More than two thirds of city dwellers say they are optimistic about the city's ability to meet their cultural and leisure needs, architectural environment, and the provision of sufficient and quality infrastructure as well as providing a dynamic economy.

...and justifiable pessimism

Changes to the fundamentals, i.e., personal safety and the cost of living, especially the difficulty in finding suitable housing, are the main factors causing anxiety. Most city dwellers doubt that any improvement is possible in these areas.

More than 72% of the respondents said they are pessimistic about the direction of the cost of living.
The high cost of living and consumption in the city, especially the weight of housing in the budget - particularly for Parisians and Londoners - are major areas of concern for the future.
In the final analysis, the overarching idea is that to enjoy the city in the future to its fullest,you will need even greater financial resources than at present.

An issue of concern today, safety is also an issue for the future. City dwellers, be they young, active or non-active, from a privileged background or not, all refer to the sense of a constant lack of safety when they look to the more or less long-term future of the city. This sentiment is more dominant in cities like Mexico City and Tokyo.

This shared sense of a lack of safety echoes the broader issue of violence in the city, both physical and social. Violence is one of the issues associated with the city, viewed fatalistically as an oppressive but inevitable feature of the landscape, without any responsibility whatsoever being attached to it, or any solutions other than increased surveillance being put forward.

Finally,among the environmental criteria, air quality and noise stand out more clearly as issues of concern in all the cities included in the study, with the exception of Chicago.