Perceived ‘Quality of Life’ in eco-developments and in conventional residential settings: an explorative study

Abstract

Initiatives such as ‘eco-developments’ are part of the movement to experiment with ways to reduce negative environmental and social impacts of urban settlements while aiming to enhance the resident's perceived Quality of Life (QOL). Due to the relatively short history of such experimental developments, their impacts upon the resident's QOL have not been thoroughly studied or documented. Therefore, eco-development's successes and failures are not clear with regards to their influence upon resident's perceptual and behavioral patterns. The literature reviewed for this research revealed that multiple factors contribute to resident's perceived QOL. The questionnaire used for this research was developed based upon key factors that were found to influence resident's life satisfaction. The findings suggest that ‘neighborhood satisfaction’, ‘home-life satisfaction’ and satisfaction with ‘sense of community’ were highly important elements in relation to how residents perceived their QOL. Resident from eco-developments had different priorities from residents in conventional developments. The factors such as income level, health situation and local government services that were initially expected to contribute highly to the QOL were found to have less importance when in-depth qualitative analyses of the responses were performed. The survey results revealed that the physical and social elements of one's immediate surroundings played an integral role in terms of better perception of QOL. Furthermore, residents from eco-developments were found to perceive a higher QOL than the residents who lived in conventional settings.