DOES GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION MATTER? ASSESSING SPATIAL PATTERNS IN PERCEIVED QUALITY OF LIFE IN EUROPEAN CITIES

Abstract

The Quality of Urban Life is one of the most important issues of the present policies, being
highly researched. The spatial dimension of this concept is still a major challenge for both
researchers and policy makers as it was not enough explored and applied. Therefore, the present
paper aims to create a more in-depth image on the Quality of Urban Life in Europe, by detecting
and explaining the spatial differences in relation to their territorial context. Spatial statistics
applied on Urban Audit Data is employed to create a typology of European cities, to identify
spatial outliers by using spatial autocorrelation and to map the regional differences in the
relationship between different domains of the Quality of Urban Life. Our results bring to light
both some clear regional patterns in perception on the Quality of Urban Life and some particular
cases - outliers – which require special attention when developing different planning policies.
The present research identifies a dominant West-East and North-South gradient, strengthening
the idea that QoUL- which has a wide spatial variation- is highly influenced by the geographical
location. Hence, the study not only creates a general in depth diagnosis on the Quality of Urban
Life in Europe, but also proposes a methodological framework for researching perceptions from
a spatial point of view.