No Place for Poor Men: On the Asymmetric Effect of Urbanization on Life Satisfaction

The literature on the geography of subjective well-being largely converges in pointing out the occurrence, at least in developed countries, of an urban/rural divide: people living in the most urbanized regions tend to be significantly less satisfied than those living in rural areas. This paper aims at reassessing this statement by taking into consideration an important aspect, frequently overlooked in the literature, i.e. people-based characteristics. Individuals are not alike and may differently experience and appreciate the advantages and disadvantages of urbanisation. Characteristics such as the level of education, the type of occupation and, more generally, the income level can mediate the capacity to reap urbanisation advantages (as the accessibility to advanced services and diversified job markets) and mitigate urbanization disadvantages (such as cost of living and congestion). Additionally, but based on the same reasoning, more educated and affluent individuals (negatively) value distance from top rank centres more than less educated and affluent ones. We test and prove these propositions in a study on the subjective well-being of more than 250,000 individuals living in European cities, defined as NUTS3 regions, in the period 2004–2010.