ABSTRACT
For some time now the focus of research on quality of life (QOL) in cities has been associated with material factors. Traditional indicators such as average per capita incomes, unemployment rates and cost of living indexes were often adopted to measure the ‘overall health’ of a nation and the well-being of its citizens. This approach for conceiving QOL came into its own in the late 1980s. A different set of criteria — largely non-material — was also put forward (Kuz, 1978; Pacione, 1982; Grayson and Young, 1994), ultimately redefining our view of QOL. As Shook (1982, p. 17) notes ‘[q]uality of life is not necessarily a direct result of high income and material wealth! Rather, it is a summing up of a city’s or region’s perceived value for the people who reside or who may contemplate moving there’. This definition is consistent with Grayson and Young’s (1994, p 10) observation: ‘[t]he emergence of the quality of life debate can itself be seen as signifying the transition to a post-materialist society in which other values and the meeting of less basic needs increasingly shape people’s actions’.
