Impact Analysis of the Built Environment on Quality of Life

Abstract

This paper aims to assess the relationship between quality of life (QOL) and the built environment in the City of Atlanta. Due to the complexity of the concept of quality of life, this study focuses on objective measurements which involve tangible objects such as employment, economic status, education level and oneﾒs social and physical environment. Specifically, these indicators are the average travel time, employment rate, nonpoverty rate, housing affordability, education attainment, and shortest distance to public facilities. The built environment is assessed from measures of population density, transit accessibility, and street connectivity, and the share of four types land uses (residential, commercial, industrial, and greenspace). The relationship between QOL and built environment is examined through regression analysis. The result indicates that there are some relationships between the built environment and quality of life. Among the four-built environment variable categories, transit accessibility, population density, and mixed uses of residential, commercial and industrial spaces have a positive relationship with QOL, while the ratio of greenspace shows negative impacts on QOL index and street density does not have relationship with QOL index.