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Comments on the concept of a quality of life index
Urban Ecology, 3 (1978) 310-311 o Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company,
COMMENTS
ON THE CONCEPT
Amsterdam
-
Printed
OF A QUALITY
in The Netherlands
OF LIFE INDEX
Quality of life is what it is all about. Thinking in quality of life terms is a fruitful and next to self-evident thing in planning. A quality of life index, on the other hand, is a very doubtful thing. A quality of life index represents a natural development in the rationalistic tradition. It is assumed that quality of life can be dissected, that its elements can be analysed and evaluated separately and that the overall quality can be described as the sum of the qualities of its parts. An index based upon these assumptions is supposed to be a useful tool in planning decision making. This approach is bound to come up against some considerable difficulties. Quality of life is a compound and relative thing. Its purport is different to different people at different times. The value being attributed to a certain aspect is generally negotiable and dependant on what has to be offered to obtain it. When planning decisions are made, the scene is generally one with conflicting interests, both inside each individual and between groups. The arena is one of choice and conflict-solving. That situation requires understanding. Understanding is what the planning process should provide. By understanding and negotiation, choices and decisions are made possible. To estimate a quality of life index a priori is then hardly possible. It would rather be the result of that planning and decision making process it is supposed to facilitate. Let us say that the survival of a smaller community in a stagnating region is at issue. It is the well-known problem of supporting a region and thereby giving the people a chance to stay where they are living, or not giving that support and thereby forcing the people to move to larger towns in more prosperous regions. Then the question of quality of life in the different communities is raised. The smaller community where the people are living forms a well-known neighbourhood. The larger communities where they would have to move are unfamiliar places where all social contacts have to be built up again. The smaller community has more limited services, but they are closer and more personal. The larger community has more varied services, but often at a greater distance and more impersonal. The smaller community offers a quiet but maybe low-stimulating environment. The larger community is maybe more stimulating but also more stressful. What about employment in the smaller community in 5 years from now, and for our children? The larger community provides maybe more and more varied job opportunities. The smaller community offers a surplus of fishing, skiing and other recreational opportunities. In the larger community, however, theaters, c!ubs, education may be more abundant. And so on. . . .
311
The quality of life in the two kinds of places is now of primary interest in regional policy decision-making; but can it reasonably be summed up in quality of life indexes? The evaluation of supply and closeness to service is very different among different people according to age, health, mentality, life-style, economic and educational situation, etc. So is the evaluation of familiarity, calmness, stimulation, recreation, job opportunities, and so on. Furthermore, that evaluation is successively changing with the alteration over time of the social, economic and cultural environment. A sound judgement can be obtained only through an understanding of the situation by those people who are themselves involved. Their evaluations can hardly be expressed by an index, but only by their own diverse opinions. Or let us say that the problem of squatter areas in the large cities of developing countries is at issue. Only a few years ago, an estimation of quality of life indexes for those areas would probably have focused upon housing and sanitary standards, transportation, schools, medical care, employ. ment; all based on ideologies of the industrialized countries. Now a continued and more profound learning about life in those areas has extended the attention towards their very intricate social networks. And the concept of how to improve life quality in those areas is successively shifting. This exemplifies an ongoing learning process in which the quality of life concept is obviously fruitful, but how could this continually increasing knowledge be expressed in an index and of what use would it be? The process is still going on. Next is, by all indications, the increased understanding of the role of those people living in the areas. It concerns their roles in learning, planning and deciding about their areas, and a transfer, as far as practical, of initiative and power to those people. However, do not all those city-wide problems of transportation, employment, etc., that have to be dealt with centrally, offer a field for quality of life indexes? Even that is doubtful. The distribution of resources among the subareas should be based upon that same kind of learning and negotiation process in which representatives from the subareas should take part. And even as a bureaucratic tool in servicing such a process, a straight-forward and variegated description of the very compound qualities of life, of different action programmes would give better information than any index. Therefore, both the compoundness of the phenomenom the index is supposed to express and the kind of planning process it presumes stand against the idea of a quality of life index. STIG NORDQVIST
(Stockholm,
Sweden)
COMMENTS
ON THE CONCEPT
Amsterdam
-
Printed
OF A QUALITY
in The Netherlands
OF LIFE INDEX
Quality of life is what it is all about. Thinking in quality of life terms is a fruitful and next to self-evident thing in planning. A quality of life index, on the other hand, is a very doubtful thing. A quality of life index represents a natural development in the rationalistic tradition. It is assumed that quality of life can be dissected, that its elements can be analysed and evaluated separately and that the overall quality can be described as the sum of the qualities of its parts. An index based upon these assumptions is supposed to be a useful tool in planning decision making. This approach is bound to come up against some considerable difficulties. Quality of life is a compound and relative thing. Its purport is different to different people at different times. The value being attributed to a certain aspect is generally negotiable and dependant on what has to be offered to obtain it. When planning decisions are made, the scene is generally one with conflicting interests, both inside each individual and between groups. The arena is one of choice and conflict-solving. That situation requires understanding. Understanding is what the planning process should provide. By understanding and negotiation, choices and decisions are made possible. To estimate a quality of life index a priori is then hardly possible. It would rather be the result of that planning and decision making process it is supposed to facilitate. Let us say that the survival of a smaller community in a stagnating region is at issue. It is the well-known problem of supporting a region and thereby giving the people a chance to stay where they are living, or not giving that support and thereby forcing the people to move to larger towns in more prosperous regions. Then the question of quality of life in the different communities is raised. The smaller community where the people are living forms a well-known neighbourhood. The larger communities where they would have to move are unfamiliar places where all social contacts have to be built up again. The smaller community has more limited services, but they are closer and more personal. The larger community has more varied services, but often at a greater distance and more impersonal. The smaller community offers a quiet but maybe low-stimulating environment. The larger community is maybe more stimulating but also more stressful. What about employment in the smaller community in 5 years from now, and for our children? The larger community provides maybe more and more varied job opportunities. The smaller community offers a surplus of fishing, skiing and other recreational opportunities. In the larger community, however, theaters, c!ubs, education may be more abundant. And so on. . . .
311
The quality of life in the two kinds of places is now of primary interest in regional policy decision-making; but can it reasonably be summed up in quality of life indexes? The evaluation of supply and closeness to service is very different among different people according to age, health, mentality, life-style, economic and educational situation, etc. So is the evaluation of familiarity, calmness, stimulation, recreation, job opportunities, and so on. Furthermore, that evaluation is successively changing with the alteration over time of the social, economic and cultural environment. A sound judgement can be obtained only through an understanding of the situation by those people who are themselves involved. Their evaluations can hardly be expressed by an index, but only by their own diverse opinions. Or let us say that the problem of squatter areas in the large cities of developing countries is at issue. Only a few years ago, an estimation of quality of life indexes for those areas would probably have focused upon housing and sanitary standards, transportation, schools, medical care, employ. ment; all based on ideologies of the industrialized countries. Now a continued and more profound learning about life in those areas has extended the attention towards their very intricate social networks. And the concept of how to improve life quality in those areas is successively shifting. This exemplifies an ongoing learning process in which the quality of life concept is obviously fruitful, but how could this continually increasing knowledge be expressed in an index and of what use would it be? The process is still going on. Next is, by all indications, the increased understanding of the role of those people living in the areas. It concerns their roles in learning, planning and deciding about their areas, and a transfer, as far as practical, of initiative and power to those people. However, do not all those city-wide problems of transportation, employment, etc., that have to be dealt with centrally, offer a field for quality of life indexes? Even that is doubtful. The distribution of resources among the subareas should be based upon that same kind of learning and negotiation process in which representatives from the subareas should take part. And even as a bureaucratic tool in servicing such a process, a straight-forward and variegated description of the very compound qualities of life, of different action programmes would give better information than any index. Therefore, both the compoundness of the phenomenom the index is supposed to express and the kind of planning process it presumes stand against the idea of a quality of life index. STIG NORDQVIST
(Stockholm,
Sweden)