Investigating Quality of Urban Life

Robert W. Marans is a research professor at the Institute for Social Research and a professor emeritus of architecture and urban planning in the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. During the past 30 years, Dr. Marans has conducted evaluative studies and research dealing with various aspects of communities, neighborhoods, housing, and parks and recreation and recreational facilities. His research has focused on user requirements and the manner in which attributes of the physical and sociocultural environments influence individual and group behavior and the quality of community life. Much of Dr. Marans' research has been in the context of urban areas. His current research considers the impact of the built and natural environments on quality of life, the role of neighborhood in the health of Detroit residents, and issues of sustainability in the workplace. The latter examines the human aspects of energy conservation and sustainability at the University of Michigan.Marans is a registered architect and is active in recreation planning and policy in southeastern Michigan. He is a charter member and president of the Washtenaw County Parks and Recreation commission and commissioner of the Huron-Clinton Metropolitan Authority (HCMA), the governing body responsible for the planning, development, and operations of the metroparks throughout Southeastern Michigan. He serves on the board of the Michigan Land Use Institute, and is a trustee of the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy. He has also been a trustee of the Washtenaw Land Trust and served on the executive committee of the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute and the University's Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy. Dr. Marans is the author or co-author of 7 books and more than 100 articles and technical reports. He has lectured extensively throught the US and in Europe, Asia, South Africa, Brazil and the Middle East.

From the reviews:“The book is an authoritative collection of essays that provides a valuable introduction to the field of research on QOUL, identifies key conceptual and methodological issues, and presents a number of well-written and informative empirical case studies that together illustrate the value and relevance of the research for the citizens of our contemporary urban world.” (Michael Pacione, Journal of Regional Science, Vol. 52 (2), 2012)

• Preface.-List of contributors.-Introduction.-1. An overview of quality of urban life - Robert W. Marans, Robert Stimson.-Part I: Approaches to the study of quality of life and quality of urban life.-2. Objective measurement of quality of life using secondary data analysis - Robert Stimson, Robert W. Marans.-3. Subjective measurement of quality of life using primary data collection and the analysis of survey data - Rod McCrea, Robert W. Marans, Robert Stimson, John Western.-4.The evolution of integrative approaches to the analysis of quality of urban life - Rod McCrea, Robert Stimson, Robert W. Marans.-Part II: Empirical studies of the objective measurement of quality of urban life.-5. Amenities, quality of life and regional development - Gordon Mulligan, John Carruthers.-6. Variations in objective quality of urban life across a city region: The case of Phoenix - Subhrajit Guhathakurta, Ying Cao.-Part III: Empirical studies of the subjective assessment of quality of urban life illustrated by a selection of case studies.-7. The quality of life in metro Detroit at the beginning of the millennium - Robert W. Marans, Byoung-Suk Kweon.-8. The Brisbane-South East Queensland region, Australia: Subjective assessment of quality of urban life and changes over time - Robert Stimson, Rod McCrea, John Western.-9. Measuring quality of urban life in Istanbul - Handan Türkoğlu, Fulin Bölen, Perver Korça Baran, Fatih Terzi.-10. The quality of urban life and neighbourhood satisfaction in Famagusta, Northern Cyprus - Derya Oktay, Ahmet Rustemli.-11. The quality of life in Dhaka, Bangladesh: Neighbourhood quality as a major component of residential satisfaction - Abul Mukim Mozammel Haque Mridha, Gary Moore.-12. The Salzburg quality of urban life study with GIS support - Alexander G. Keul, Thomas Prinz.-13. Subjective quality of life in Queensland:Comparing metropolitan, regional, and rural areas - Rod McCrea, Mark Western, Tung-Kai Shyy.-14. Comparing urban and rural quality of life in the State of Washington - Benjamin Messer, Don Dillman.-Part IV: Innovations in modelling quality of urban life data.-15. Modelling determinants of subjective QOUL at different geographic scales: The case of the Brisbane-SEQ region” - Rod McCrea, John Western, and Robert Stimson.-16. Disaggregating the measurement of quality of urban life dimensions across a complex metro region: the case of Metro Detroit - Byung-Suk Kweon, Robert W. Marans.-17. A spatial clustering approach analysing types of objective quality of urban life using spatial data for survey respondents: South-East Queensland, Australia - Rod McCrea.-18. Using GIS to derive region-wide patterns of quality of urban life dimensions: Illustrated with data from the Brisbane-SEQ region - Prem Chhetri, Robert Stimson, John Western.- The way forward.-19. Challenges for quality of urban life research - Robert W. Marans, Robert Stimson.