ABSTRACT
There has been a growing momentum toward highlighting livability in cities around the world, reflecting a rich discourse in urban development (Bright 2000, Fischer 2000, Wheeler 2001, Godschalk 2004, Dumbaugh 2005). Cities have adopted livability as a key strategy of urban management (Haider 1992, Olds 1995), often with infrastructure and environmental upgrading, creating urban economic competitiveness through the construction of new urban plazas, monumental spaces and buildings, and mega projects (Eisinger 2000, Doel and Hubbard 2002). There has been common agreement on making cities livable through physical dimensions such as the built and natural environment, public service facilities, housing provision, public and open spaces, infrastructure, and so on. However, the focus of livability on material or economic wealth would miss the social relations needed for the higher pursuit of a livable city (Peattie 1998). Urban development and its regulations are socially constructed, and hence the social dimension of a livable city is indispensable (Hankins and Powers 2009). It is important to differentiate livable requirements for upper- and middle-class urban dwellers from the requirements of the urban poor. As Ley rightly states, “the category of urban livability was poly-vocal; for the middle class it implied a more healthy environment and attention to culture and the arts; for the inner city it carried a more rudimentary sense of social justice in such areas as jobs, housing and public services” (1990: 33). Livability implies different causes of local socio-economic and built environment issues, and prescribes different remedies to those problems (Vanderheiden 2008). Profit-making private investments often make urban life livable through luxury and consumption at the cost of people who cannot afford them. In this case, the state is more likely to support private investors’ goals instead of effectively overcoming social inequality and providing all of its citizenry equal access to a livable city.
