An Intellectual Capital Approach to Citizens’ Quality of Life in Sustainable Cities: A Focus on Europe

Abstract

The quality of life of citizens in a city is related to the sustainable decisions made by their leaders. By using principal component analysis (PCA) and taking an intellectual capital perspective (all sources of knowledge in human, relational and structural areas), we explore which of the three dimensions used to measure the sustainability of a city—economic, social or environmental—has the greatest effect on a subjective measurement of quality of life. We propose an econometric model based on a tangible production model to study the relationship between the quality of life and sustainability. To that end, we perform an in-depth examination of the different effects on the four dimensions that comprise the measure of the subjective quality of life: satisfaction, mobility, integration and public service. The results of the estimated model of citizens’ quality of life confirm the existence of a direct relationship for the 52 European cities under study; however, the least relevant role is played by the environmental dimension, which is still unappreciated by citizens. Conversely, the economic and social dimension are found to be determinants in all cases, except for social integration. Therefore, a key requirement of the management aimed at achieving sustainable development in European cities is to activate the environmental dimension.

Between the Social and Economic Dimensions of Sustainability in Rural Areas—In Search of Farmers’ Quality of Life

“…Our research was based on an assumption-shared also by López-Ruiz [141], Sachs [11], and the UN [150]-that quality of life is a general aim of sustainable development. Undoubtedly, it is also one of the important factors influencing farms' sustainability [98,[151][152][153][154].…”

“…Undoubtedly, it is also one of the important factors influencing farms' sustainability [98,[151][152][153][154]. Research dealing with life quality (not only of farmers but of other social groups, as well) usually contains construction and analyses of subjective and objective indices, see [141]. In this research, we decided not to create a general life quality index, but to analyse relationships between crucial elements of farmers' life quality instead; such analyses are not common.…”

“…In this research, we decided not to create a general life quality index, but to analyse relationships between crucial elements of farmers' life quality instead; such analyses are not common. In this approach, it was not possible to rank a particular person, region, or country in a life quality continuum, which is done by many researchers [141]. We decided to use the structural equation modelling technique-a widely used method, but so far not (or very rarely) used for analysing farmers' life quality.…”

“…It should be emphasized that in our model, quality of life was expressed both in economic and social terms. We followed the results obtained by López-Ruiz et al [141], who explored which of the three dimensions of sustainability of a city (economic, social, or environmental) has the greatest effect on citizens' subjective quality of life. According to their analyses, economic and social dimensions determined almost all elements of life quality, while environmental factors had rather low connections with the life quality.…”

“…It is difficult to find any analyses of relationships between life quality components in the literature, and thus this is a novel approach. We assumed that the economic situation of the household affected both the living conditions and mental comfort of a farmer [61,80,[141][142][143]. This assumption was based on the knowledge that a better economic situation usually results in better living conditions.…”