Are We Happy in Densely Populated Environments? Assessing the Impacts of Density on Subjective Well-Being, Quality of Life, and Perceived Health in Montreal, Canada.

Abstract

Compact city development has been increasingly promoted as a tool to encourage urban sustainability and to reduce humans’ environmental footprint. The impacts of such urban development on subjective well-being (SWB), Quality of Life (QOL), and perceived health—non-monetary metrics of prosperity—have not been extensively explored in the North American context. This paper delves into the relationship between density and happiness by analyzing a travel survey distributed in Montreal, Quebec, Canada (n = 4,148). A cumulative logit model assessed levels of happiness—as measured by SWB, QOL, and perceived health—against confounding variables such as age, gender, household size, marital status, education, income levels, and residential self-selection, while including neighborhood density as our main policy variable. Results do not show that population density affects perceived health or SWB. However, a small inverse relationship between QOL and population density was observed. Analyzing neighborhood characteristics through their effect on SWB, QOL, and perceived health provides further evidence on the links between the urban landscape and happiness, and the study’s results can inform zoning and land-use policymaking.