Liveability - the key to success in community development

Liveability is not only physical infrastructure - Photo courtesy of Denys Nevozhai - Unsplash

by Mateja Mihinjac

What is liveability? Liveability is one of those buzzwords that has been used extensively in urban development and city planning circles. Yet, it is one of those words that mean different things to different people and organisations and they rarely offer a consensus on what it means.

For example, the Online Cambridge Dictionary defines liveability as “the degree to which a place is suitable or good for living in”.

The organization, Partners for Livable Communities, takes a more specific approach: “Livability is the sum of the factors that add up to a community’s quality of life—including the built and natural environments, economic prosperity, social stability and equity, educational opportunity, and cultural, entertainment and recreation possibilities.”

Different definitions of liveability raise some important questions. Is liveability simply a binary concept? What parameters should it consider?

IS IT JUST BINARY?

Over the years, and especially since Greg Saville and I wrote our first article on Third Generation CPTED in 2019, I’ve had interesting discussions in professional circles about liveability.

At some point, liveability must mean the perspectives of people

First, I am asked about levels of liveability. In our article, Greg and I proposed neighbourhood liveability exists on a spectrum from advanced level to moderate and basic level neighbourhoods. An advanced-level neighbourhood will be highly liveable and offer opportunities for addressing the lowest and the highest level personal and social needs. Conversely, the neighbourhood at the basic level will generally have a bare minimum infrastructure and services for addressing the basic level physiological and psychological needs.

Sometimes, I am asked whether liveability exists or it doesn’t exist – a binary relationship. That would mean we should classify neighbourhoods as either liveable or non-liveable. 

In our view, liveability should be assessed on a spectrum similar to that of personal health. There are many levels of health with a multitude of contributing factors; we don’t simply say one is healthy while another is unhealthy. Similarly, as we describe in our 3rd Generation article, liveability of a neighbourhood has many facets that may contribute to higher levels of liveability in some categories and lower in others.

Existing liveability indices support our view. The continuum of liveability shows up when world cities are ranked based on their liveability scores in relation to economic, health, physical, and social factors. Organisations using these indices affirm there is a continuum of liveability. 

For example, 

• The Economist’s Intelligence Unit assigns different weighing to categories of stability, healthcare, culture & environment, education, and infrastructure to calculate the total index. 
• Mercer’s Quality of Living City Ranking uses categories of political stability, healthcare, education, infrastructure, and socio-cultural environment. 

These are just some examples of why it appears unproductive to refer to liveability as a binary concept.

Integrating green with concrete infrastructures can improve livability - Photo courtesy of Unsplash

WHOSE LIVEABILITY PARAMETERS?

Another point of contention is the categories employed when evaluating liveability. The Centre for Liveable Cities points to the tangible elements associated with physical infrastructure and availability of services like housing affordability, road access, school, and shopping access.

Undoubtedly, such services are paramount for a good quality of life. Unsurprisingly, cities like Singapore and Vienna score highly on the liveability scale largely due to these types of elements. 

But a question remains: Should we rely on those categories defined by the organisations conducting liveability surveys? Or should we delve deeper and identify what liveability means to people living in a particular neighbourhood? 

Our choice is the second option – liveability should be based on residents’ assessment of whether their needs and desires are being addressed where they live. This might make comparisons between neighborhoods difficult and it will surely annoy evaluators. However, the methodological needs of the evaluators seem secondary to the needs of the residents. It seems more realistic to ask those who actually live in a place to define their own perceptions of where they live. 

Liveable cities offer social places - Photo courtesy of Toni Ferreira, Unsplash

IT'S PEOPLE! 

One thing is certain: liveability should put people and local communities at the centre. This view is supported by many different sources. For example, consider the website of Partners for Livable Communities. They too identify people as the greatest resource for community change.

It is also identified by the senior communications adviser for the Congress of New Urbanism, Robert Steuteville, who asserts the importance of walkable and integrated living environments for building social capital and promoting a sense of belonging within a community.

Another supporter emerged in a recent interview with urbanist Richard Florida. His view was that the key element of liveability centers around community building, housing affordability, and access to health & wellness.

TO-FOR-WITH

From our perspective, liveability starts with people. The core philosophy of SafeGrowth is the TO-FOR-WITH principle – we aim to work as much “with” residents in a place rather than delivering programs “to” them or “for” them. It has historical roots in sociology and community development going back to the action research studies of the last century. It was the method employed in our successful SafeGrowth work in New Orleans.

Instead of relying on professional agencies to identify liveability categories, or discussing whether some city or neighbourhood is liveable or not, we need to start paying more attention to people. We must find out what liveability means to them and what they need to improve it.