The Quality Of Life In Latin American Cities

A growing number of cities around the world have established systems for monitoring the quality of urban life. Many of those systems combine objective information with subjective opinions and cover a wide variety of topics. This book assesses a method that takes advantage of both types of information and offers criteria to identify and rank the issues of potential importance for urban dwellers. This method which combines the so-called 'hedonic price' and 'life satisfaction' approaches to value public goods was tested in pilot studies in six Latin American cities: Bogot , Buenos Aires, Lima, Medell n, Montevideo, and San Jos of Costa Rica. It provides valuable insights to address key questions such as, Which urban problems have the greatest impact on people s opinions of city management and the most widespread effects on their lives? Do gaps between perception and reality vary from one area of the city to another, especially between high- and low-income neighborhoods? Where can homebuilders most feasibly seek solutions to problems such as inadequate road infrastructure, a lack of recreational areas, or poor safety conditions? Which problems should government authorities address first, in light of their impact on the well-being of various groups of individuals and given private actors abilities to respond? Which homeowners benefit the most from public infrastructure or services? When can or should property taxes be used to finance the provision of certain services or the solution of certain problems? 'The Quality of Life in Latin American Cities: Markets and Perception' proposes a monitoring system that is easy to operate and that entails reasonable costs but also has a solid conceptual basis. Long the ideal of many scholars and practitioners, such a system may soon become a reality and have the potential to make a significant contribution to the decision-making processes in any city concerned with the well-being of its residents.

This volume sheds new light on the use of quantitative, qualitative and synthetic indicators for the measurement of quality of life in different countries of Latin America. Organized in three parts, the book presents the methodology for the construction of new indicators, discusses quality of urban life from a geographical perspective, and examines quality of life of different populations. The book focuses on the social, economic, political, geographical and demographic dimensions. It covers a wide range of topics, including the ways to measure social, political and spatial inequalities, the changes in urban quality of life, the construction of a synthetic indicator for the assessment of habitability, the measuring of spatial segregation in midsize and smaller cities by using thematic cartography and synthesis maps, and the concept of habitability. It includes research conducted on the quality of life of different population groups: working boys and girls, high-school students, and older people.

Many Latin American countries have experienced improvements in income over recent decades, with several of them now classified as high-income or upper middle-income in terms of conventional metrics. But has this change been mirrored in improvements across the different areas of people’s lives? How’s Life in Latin America? Measuring Well-being for Policy Making addresses this question by presenting comparative evidence for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) with a focus on 11 LAC countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay).

Gilbert (geography, University College, London) examines the reasons for and consequences of the mass movement from country to city and the enormous strain placed on the infrastructure and services of major cities, only intensified by cutbacks in social spending. First published in the UK in 1994 by the Latin America Bureau (Research and Action) Ltd., London. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

By the dawn of the 21st century, more than half of the world's population was living in urban areas. This volume explores the implications of this unprecedented expansion in the world's most urbanized region, Latin America, exploring the new urban reality, and the consequences for both Latin America and the rest of the developing world.

This volume reflects on urban development strategies that have been implemented recently in Latin America. Over the past twenty years, there has been great improvement in governmental efficiency, with local and national governments executing important projects that increase the quality of life in cities. However, the causes of collective disadvantage – which created the problems governments attempt to resolve – continue to affect many people throughout the continent. Thus, the essays here examine a wide range of socioeconomic, political, ethnic and historical issues that have influenced the emergence of marginal urbanisms in Latin American cities. The argument most strongly presented in this book is that infrastructural insertions need to be considered as the baseline for urban development, not as its main goal. Urban infrastructure cannot be taken as the only target for urban development programmes, but rather as an instrument for achieving more significant, and inclusive, urban transformations that respond more adequately to the realities of the people who inhabit Latin American cities.

Traditionally, the concept of quality of life has been viewed through objective indicators. Beyond Facts looks at quality of life through a new lens, namely, the perceptions of millions of Latin Americans. Using an enhanced version of the recently created Gallup World Poll that incorporates Latin America-specific questions, the Inter-American Development Bank surveyed people from throughout the region and found that perceptions of quality of life are often very different from the reality. These surprising findings have enormous significance for the political economy of the region and provide a wealth of information for policymakers and development practitioners to feast upon.

The "quality of life" concept of quality of life is a broad one. It incorporates basic needs but also extends beyond them to include capabilities, the "livability" of the environment, and life appreciation and happiness. Latin America's diversity in culture and levels of development provide a laboratory for studying how quality of life varies with a number of objective and subjective measures. These measures range from income levels to job insecurity and satisfaction, to schooling attainment and satisfaction, to measured and self-assessed health, among others. Paradox and Perception greatly improves our understanding of the determinants of well-being in Latin America based on a broad "quality of life" concept that challenges some standard assumptions in economics, including those about the relationship between happiness and income. The authors' analysis builds upon a number of new approaches in economics, particularly those related to the study of happiness and finds a number of paradoxes as the region's respondents evaluate their well-being. These include the paradox of unhappy growth at the macroeconomic level, happy peasants and frustrated achievers at the microlevel, and surprisingly high levels of satisfaction with public services among the region's poorest. They also have important substantive links with several of the region's realities, such as high levels of income inequality, volatile macroeconomic performance, and low expectations of public institutions and faith in the capacity of the state to deliver. Identifying these perceptions, paradoxes, and their causes will contribute to the crafting of better public policies, as well as to our understanding of why "populist" politics still pervade in much of the region.