Mapping the quality of life experience in Alfama: A case study in Lisbon, Portugal

Abstract

This research maps the urban quality of life (QoL) in Alfama, Lisbon (Portugal) through objective and subjective measures. A survey of 69 respondents and locations of social services were gathered suggesting the subjective and objective QoL respectively in the physical, economic, and social domains. The relationship between the two measures is examined using correlation analysis. It was determined that the association between them is weak and not significant, which could have been caused by the geographic scale and the sample size. These two factors also affected the spatial autocorrelation check implemented to the 15 subjective indicators using the Moran's I test. Out of 15, only 3 indicators were spatially autocorrelated. These 3 indicators were interpolated using Ordinary Kriging (OK). The rest is interpolated using the Voronoi polygon. All 15 prediction maps were used to create the overall subjective QoL using Weighted Sum procedure. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.