Introduction Vol. 2 Issue 2 International Journal of Community Well-Being

Correction to: Economy Doesn’t Buy Community Wellbeing: a Study of Factors Shaping Community Wellbeing in South Korea This paper was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2016S1A3A2924563).

Correction to: Community Well-Being in Neighbourhoods: Achieving Community and Open-Minded Space through Engagement in Neighbourhoods This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2016S1A3A2924563) and by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, through an Insight Grant.

Noah’s Town: Where Animals Reign, by Maury Forman Reviewed by Terry Lawhead

Happy Wuppertal – Measuring Individual and Community Well-Being on the Urban Scale Abstract In this paper we will present lessons learned and examples of empirical findings from an app-based survey in the City of Wuppertal, Germany. The app consists of several complementing modules that look into the individual well-being and community wellbeing of the citizens of Wuppertal. Within 12 months the central questionnaire has been answered 1799 times in full by different individuals. The app is very well known within the city due to partnerships with local enterprises and media. Some first steps towards using the app in decision making have been taken and will be extended. The experience shows great potential of such an approach both for research and new forms of participation but also some challenges in consistently motivating citizens to participate. The results of the survey confirmed some known factors influencing happiness but also showed some interesting patterns relevant both to local decision making and further research.

Determining Factors Influencing Residents’ Satisfaction Regarding Urban Livability in Pakistan Abstract Livability is an important and crucial aspect of urbanity which depicts quality of life. The emerging cities have a variety of urban challenges, including poor quality of life that has focused urban planners towards livability measures. Pakistani cities are facing similar challenges, like provision of adequate infrastructural facilities and amenities, due to which cities are losing their livability standards. Hyderabad, the second biggest city of Sindh Province, is an emerging metropolitan facing the same dilemma. The objective of this paper is to measure the livability as perceived by the residents. Six urban settlements were selected through stratified sampling to represent three income groups present in the study area, i.e. upper, middle and lower. Through systematic sampling, a sample size of 290 was procured for the household-based questionnaire survey, and descriptive statistics and multiple regression techniques were used. Results showed a significant relationship between perceived livability and livability attributes. The environmental attribute was found most significant in affecting livability perception of residents. The study also highlights eight livability variables which need to be considered for improving the quality of life in future urban development projects, not just in Pakistan, but also other developing countries.

Re-Examination of Quality of Life Indicators in US - Mexico Border Cities: a Critical Review Abstract This paper explores quality of life (QoL) in the US–Mexico Border region by revisiting The Border Observatory Project (BOP). The BOP collected and analyzed survey-response data derived from four pairs of border sister cities (Mexicali, Baja and Calexico, California; San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora and San Luis/Somerton, Arizona; Juarez, Chihuahua and El Paso, Texas; Tijuana, Baja and San Diego, California) over time. This paper adds to the literature on QoL by identifying the social and QoL indicators particularly pertinent to U.S.–Mexico border cities and significant differences between cities. The BOP and recent literature on U.S.-Mexico border QoL and social indicators are described and leveraged to propose a border-rooted bi-national, multi-community, and multi-indicator social indicators framework for use in future QoL and social indicator studies regarding border cities. The commentary and proposed framework in this paper help inform future research, policy, and practice concerning residents and migrants found in border communities.

When Do Development Projects Enhance Community Well-Being? Abstract Many development agencies and governments now seek to engage directly with local communities, whether as a means to the realization of more familiar goals (infrastructure, healthcare, education) or as an end in itself (promoting greater inclusion, participation, well-being). These same agencies and governments, however, are also under increasing pressure to formally demonstrate that their actions ‘work’ and achieve their goals within relatively short timeframes – expectations which are, for the most part, necessary and desirable. But adequately assessing ‘community-driven’ approaches to development requires the deployment of theory and methods that accommodate their distinctive characteristics: building bridges is a qualitatively different task to building the rule of law and empowering minorities. Moreover, the ‘lessons’ inferred from average treatment effects derived from even the most rigorous assessments of community-driven interventions are unlikely to translate cleanly to different contexts and scales of operation. Some guidance for anticipating and managing these conundrums are provided.

Subjective Well-Being and the 2008 Recession in European Regions: The Moderating Role of Quality of Governance Abstract How can we explain why some regions experienced large decreases in subjective well-being during the 2008 recession, while in other regions, the changes were only very modest? Building on the literature on resilience in subjective well-being during periods of crisis, this article explores a related but undervalued factor that moderates the localized relationship between macroeconomic developments and life evaluation: regional quality of governance. We use individual-level data on life satisfaction and personal information taken from Eurobarometer for 89 European regions in the EU-28 for the period of 2005–2014, combined with macroeconomic variables and regional quality of governance data to test for the hypothesized moderating effect of quality of governance. The results demonstrate that increased regional unemployment and financial stress have a less aggravating effect on subjective well-being in regions characterized by a high quality of governance. These results support the capacity of quality of governance to buffer the negative effects of adverse macroeconomic conditions, most likely through generating trust and providing a safety net.

Introduction Vol. 2 Issue 1 International Journal of Community Well-Being