IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v43y2011i3p683-702.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Quality of Life in Urban-Classified and Rural-Classified English Local Authority Areas

Author

Listed:
  • Josep M Campanera

    (Departament de Fisicoquímica, Facultat de Farmà cia, Universitat de Barcelona, Av. Joan XXIII, s/n, 08028 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain)

  • Paul Higgins

    (Department of Public and Social Administration, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR)

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an analysis of the Audit Commission's local quality-of-life indicators dataset to compare reported outcomes amongst 208 urban-classified and 144 rural-classified English local authority areas. We contextualise the demarcation of the urban and rural by reference to the transformational politics of the previous Labour government and its establishment of the sustainable communities initiative, whose controversial ‘place-based’ revitalisation essence continues to shape local government policy. According to the collectivist sustainability interpretation of the 73 indicators analysed, our results reveal that not only do urban-classified English local authority areas register a significantly lower quality of life than their rural counterparts but that they are also subject to much greater statistical and spatial variation. In addition, we find that the community-related and economy-related indicators serve to distinguish the reported quality-of-life conditions of rural and urban localities most, whereas the scores for transport are uniquely superior for urban areas, especially London. In considering the policy implications of our results, we draw attention to Labour's much-trumpeted justice-based approach to sustainable development, and contemplate the viability of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government's ‘Big Society’ endeavour.

Suggested Citation

  • Josep M Campanera & Paul Higgins, 2011. "Quality of Life in Urban-Classified and Rural-Classified English Local Authority Areas," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 43(3), pages 683-702, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:43:y:2011:i:3:p:683-702
    DOI: 10.1068/a43450
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a43450
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a43450?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Loretta Lees, 2009. "Urban Renaissance in an Urban Recession: The End of Gentrification?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(7), pages 1529-1533, July.
    2. Tom Slater, 2006. "The Eviction of Critical Perspectives from Gentrification Research," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 737-757, December.
    3. Rogerson, Robert J., 1995. "Environmental and health-related quality of life: Conceptual and methodological similarities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 41(10), pages 1373-1382, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mark Davidson, 2011. "Critical Commentary. Gentrification in Crisis," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(10), pages 1987-1996, August.
    2. Nadine Marquardt & Henning Füller & Georg Glasze & Robert Pütz, 2013. "Shaping the Urban Renaissance: New-build Luxury Developments in Berlin," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(8), pages 1540-1556, June.
    3. Marguerite van den Berg, 2018. "The discursive uses of Jane Jacobs for the genderfying city: Understanding the productions of space for post-Fordist gender notions," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(4), pages 751-766, March.
    4. Tim Butler, 2007. "Re‐urbanizing London Docklands: Gentrification, Suburbanization or New Urbanism?," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 759-781, December.
    5. Winifred Curran, 2018. "‘Mexicans love red’ and other gentrification myths: Displacements and contestations in the gentrification of Pilsen, Chicago, USA," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(8), pages 1711-1728, June.
    6. Shenjing He, 2012. "Two Waves of Gentrification and Emerging Rights Issues in Guangzhou, China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(12), pages 2817-2833, December.
    7. Jean-Paul D. Addie, 2009. "Constructing Neoliberal Urban Democracy in the American Inner-city," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 24(6-7), pages 536-554, September.
    8. Ashraf Abd El Karim & Mohsen M. Awawdeh, 2020. "Integrating GIS Accessibility and Location-Allocation Models with Multicriteria Decision Analysis for Evaluating Quality of Life in Buraidah City, KSA," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-28, February.
    9. Ingmar Pastak & Eneli Kindsiko & Tiit Tammaru & Reinout Kleinhans & Maarten Van Ham, 2019. "Commercial Gentrification in Post‐Industrial Neighbourhoods: A Dynamic View From an Entrepreneur’s Perspective," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 110(5), pages 588-604, December.
    10. Andrew Harris, 2008. "From London to Mumbai and Back Again: Gentrification and Public Policy in Comparative Perspective," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(12), pages 2407-2428, November.
    11. Lance Freeman, 2009. "Neighbourhood Diversity, Metropolitan Segregation and Gentrification: What Are the Links in the US?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 46(10), pages 2079-2101, September.
    12. Seth Schindler & Jonathan Silver, 2019. "Florida in the Global South: How Eurocentrism Obscures Global Urban Challenges—and What We Can Do about It," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(4), pages 794-805, July.
    13. Gordon MacLeod, 2013. "New Urbanism/Smart Growth in the Scottish Highlands: Mobile Policies and Post-politics in Local Development Planning," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(11), pages 2196-2221, August.
    14. Belotti, Alice, 2016. "Estate regeneration and community impacts: challenges and lessons for social landlords, developers and local councils," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121480, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Renia Ehrenfeucht & Marla Nelson, 2013. "Young Professionals as Ambivalent Change Agents in New Orleans after the 2005 Hurricanes," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(4), pages 825-841, March.
    16. George Mavrommatis, 2011. "Stories from Brixton: Gentrification and Different Differences," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 16(2), pages 29-38, June.
    17. John Joe Schlichtman & Jason Patch, 2014. "Gentrifier? Who, Me? Interrogating the Gentrifier in the Mirror," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 1491-1508, July.
    18. Dionysia Lambiri & Bianca Biagi & Vicente Royuela, 2007. "Quality of Life in the Economic and Urban Economic Literature," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 84(1), pages 1-25, October.
    19. Cardullo, Paolo, 2017. "Gentrification in the mesh? Ethnography of Open Wireless Network - Deptford," OSF Preprints jm68s, Center for Open Science.
    20. Mark Davidson, 2008. "Spoiled Mixture: Where Does State-led `Positive' Gentrification End?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(12), pages 2385-2405, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:43:y:2011:i:3:p:683-702. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.