An Objective Measure to Assessing Urban Quality of Life based on Land Use Characteristics

Quality of life (QoL) is a comprehensive concept used to assess a society's standard of living in all aspects of life. This research aims at developing an objective measurement of urban QoL by considering land use aspect at the neighborhood level and applying the geographic information systems (GIS) technology to extract land use characteristics. It proposed two land use indicators, namely compatible land use diversity and site coverage. Statistical analysis was employed to categorize the selected neighborhoods based on these land use indicators. The GIS-based method demonstrated in this study can serve as a simple, direct and objective way to compare urban QoL among different cities and their neighborhoods.