Urban Environmental Quality: Perceptions and Measures

Urban environmental problems are driven by congestion (of people, industries, and vehicles). To some extent, these stressors can be assessed using metrics derived from analytical chemistry or land use/demographic planning. However, this analytic approach to describe environmental quality leaves out other, incommensurable dimensions of quality of life. For example, stress levels and chronic disease prevalence are, to a large extent, unmeasured. Furthermore, environmental risks result from the intersection of physical phenomena with social and economic vulnerability. This is illustrated using a case study involving the location of a major sanitary landfill next to a community. There is a need to combine traditional, quantitative metrics with other, more qualitative indicators. There is also a need for more integrative ways of describing environmental quality. Future research should provide more comprehensive, socioecological models for measuring quality of life and environmental stress in urban systems.