Subjective Well-Being, Active Travel, and Socioeconomic Segregation

The relationships among subjective well-being (SWB), active travel, and the built and social environment have been rarely studied, especially in southern cities of Chile. The goal of this research is to investigate the connections between SWB and active travel, along with the associated social, built environment, and individual aspects in Temuco. Furthermore, due to the high levels of socioeconomic segregation (SES) in the city’s various urban neighborhoods, these relationships were studied independently based on two categories of neighborhoods, namely low-SES (NLSES) and high-SES (NHSES), which represent the majority of the city’s areas and population. To ascertain the number of responders in each SES category, a power analysis and simple random sampling were used. Consequently, 481 and 301 respondents were identified for NLSES and NHSES, respectively. A quantitative method and hierarchical multiple regression analysis were used to investigate the goals. The findings indicate that SWB is generally higher in NHSES than in NLSES. It was also found that there was a correlation between subjective well-being and several factors, such as age, some job-related categories, social cohesion, role models, and accessibility to shops, parks, and bus stops. Less SWB is a result of a higher unemployment rate in NLSES as opposed to NHSES. Additionally, a certain lifestyle type in NHSES demonstrated a positive correlation with SWB. Furthermore, there was a positive association found between the NHSES’s SWB and access to the bus network. This study provides evidence from a highly segregated Latin American city that shows how SWB is shaped differently across low- and high-SES neighborhoods. Temuco’s urban policymakers could use these data to improve SWB according to the different types of neighborhoods within this city.