Quality of life in relation to urban areas and sustainability. Application case: City of La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina

DISCOLI, CARLOS ALBERTO; MARTINI, IRENE; BARBERO, DANTE ANDRÉS

Handbook of quality of life and sustainability

Springer

Año: 2021; p. 353 - 370

Thischapter deals with theoretical-conceptual and instrumental aspectsthat relate the fundamental dimensions of the quality of life withinthe framework of the urban area and its sustainability degree. Adiachronic review of the concept of quality of life is carried outand a methodology is proposed to understand and assess its mainaspects according to what the city offers as a contemporary habitat.Regarding the concept of quality of life, we do not ignore that it isa complex construct in which individual and collective feelingsintervene that end up forming a welfare state in which they interactin a reciprocal way. As in this work we confine ourselves to theurban areas and the sustainability of its environment, we consider itpertinent to focus on the collective dimension of quality of life,since the city intervene in resolving this situation. This approachguides us to the understanding of "which" are the variablesthat intervene, as well as "how" and "where" theyintervene. Its conceptualization and valuation allow us to dimensionin some way the "quality of life levels" within the sameurban pattern, as well as its consequences on the territory.Regarding the aspects of sustainability, although we understand thatnecessarily to achieve it, the basic relationship between the social,the ecological and the economic must be permanently adjusted, it istrue that the city in relation to its scales in general requires anintensive demand for resources, which is permanently unbalancing thisrelationship. Consequently, we understand that this aspect does notyet have real mediation alternatives in our cities between the basicrelationships mentioned, understanding that in these cases we canevaluate "degrees of improvement" looking forward to agreater "degree of sustainability". To understand and toassess the quality of life in the urban environment, we have proposeda flexible approach methodology that includes the diversity ofintervening dimensions, and incorporates complementary analysisstrategies belonging to different disciplinary lines. With this logicwe have been able to propose convergent solutions integratingobjective and subjective aspects, as well as qualitative andquantitative of the different urban variables that intervene in thequality of collective life. Forits instrumentation we analyzed the city of La Plata, Argentina, ofintermediate scale (750,000 inhabitants). The model used for thispurpose analyzes the urbanquality of life consideringtwo main dimensions: i. Urban Services and Equipment; ii. UrbanEnvironmental Aspects. In this case we refer to the Urban Servicesand Equipment and its relation to the natural context. These areevaluated based on their qualities (-QUAvaluation attributes), theirterritorial coverage (Cov) and the opinion of users (-Op-as a factorof contrast on the part of demand). At the same time, from theperspective of sustainability, urban environmental aspects areincluded, where the habitual pathologies consistent with the dynamicsof the city are evaluated, taking into account the magnitude of theimpacts (QUA), its area of influence (Ai) and the degree ofperception held by the affected inhabitants (Per.). Thework considers the interactions between the urban aspects mentionedand their dimensions. The results are shown through maps oriented toterritorialize and define the state of basic needs, and trends interms of quality of life based on the evaluation and integration ofdifferent aspects.