Equity in the City: On Measuring Urban (Ine)quality of Life

Abstract

In economic literature, the quality of life (QoL) in a city is usually assessed through the standard revealed-preference approach, which defines a QoL index as the monetary value of urban amenities. This paper proposes an innovative methodology to measure urban QoL when equity concerns arise. The standard approach is extended by introducing preferences for even accessibility to amenities throughout the city into the QoL assessment. The QoL index is then reformulated to account for the unequal availability of amenities across neighbourhoods. The more unbalanced the distribution of amenities across neighbourhoods, the lower the assessment based on the new index. This methodology is applied to derive a QoL index for the city of Milan. The results show that the unequal distribution of amenities across neighbourhoods significantly affects the assessment of QoL for that city. © 2013 Urban Studies Journal Limited.