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Urban quality of life is usually measured by either subjective indicators using surveys of residents' perceptions, evaluations and satisfaction with urban living or by objective indicators using secondary data and relative weights for objective indicators of the urban environment. However, rarely are subjective and objective indicators of urban quality of life related to each other. In this paper, these two types of indicators were linked using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to both locate respondents to the B2003 Survey of Quality of Life in South East Queenslandâ nd also to gather objective indicators about their urban environment within the region with regard to services, facilities and overcrowding. Using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), the strength of the relationships between these objective indicators and subjective indicators was examined. The results show that relationships between objective and subjective indicators of urban QOL can be weak, and suggests care should be taken when making inferences about improvements in subjective urban QOL based on improvements in objective urban QOL. However, further research is needed into the links between objective and subjective indicators of urban QOL including examining other aspects of the urban environment, non-linear relationships, and moderating effects for individual differences.

Although most older people prefer to age in place, nonetheless many do relocate, with a small proportion moving to retirement villages, which provide a purpose designed and built residential and lifestyle environment. Using factor analyses, path analyses, and a push^pull framework, the authors model the decision process of retirees in Australia in order to identify relationships between push^pull factors and predictor variables, using data from a national survey of retirement village residents. The push factors relate to change in lifestyle, home maintenance, social isolation, and health and mobility, whereas the pull factors relate to built environment and affordability, the locational attributes of villages, and the desire to maintain an existing lifestyle. The survey data also identify village attributes considered desirable or undesirable, or important or unimportant. Overall, resident satisfaction with moving is high.

community satisfaction, housing satisfaction, life satisfaction, neighbourhood satisfaction, path analysis, perception, quality of life, regional satisfaction, survey research,

Over two centuries of economic growth have put undeniable pressure on the ecological systems that underpin human well-being. While it is agreed that these pressures are increasing, views divide on how they may be alleviated. Some suggest technological advances will automatically keep us from transgressing key environmental thresholds; others that policy reform can reconcile economic and ecological goals; while a third school argues that only a fundamental shift in societal values can keep human demands within the Earth's ecological limits. Here we use novel integrated analysis of the energy-water-food nexus, rural land use (including biodiversity), material flows and climate change to explore whether mounting ecological pressures in Australia can be reversed, while the population grows and living standards improve. We show that, in the right circumstances, economic and environmental outcomes can be decoupled. Although economic growth is strong across all scenarios, environmental performance varies widely: pressures are projected to more than double, stabilize or fall markedly by 2050. However, we find no evidence that decoupling will occur automatically. Nor do we find that a shift in societal values is required. Rather, extensions of current policies that mobilize technology and incentivize reduced pressure account for the majority of differences in environmental performance. Our results show that Australia can make great progress towards sustainable prosperity, if it chooses to do so.

The strategic use of science in regional policymaking forums often assumes collaborative interactions between stakeholders. However, other types of stakeholder interactions are possible. This paper uses the ecology of games to frame an investigation into stakeholder participation in the policy networks for regional climate change planning for South East Queensland, Australia. We tracked organisational participation in policy forums between 2008 and 2012. We then used a novel bipartite network theoretical approach to identify participation by different types of organisations across shared multiple forums, which we argue prefaces: cooperation, collaboration, support or advocacy. Network analysis was then combined with semistructured interviews to access how scientific information was utilised across the regional network. Our results suggest that stakeholder interactions were predominately used to advocate for organisational agendas. Advocacy artificially narrows the scope of possible policy options and represents a biased, selective use of information. While advocacy is an important part of policy process, as a counter balance, explicit efforts are needed to recurrently expand the scope of policy options.

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