A Well-Being Index for Housing in the Central Districts of Madrid, Spain

Abstract

The internal characteristics of dwellings and their level of accessibility to basic services have traditionally been the main variables in establishing their level of quality; however, in large cities, problems associated with traffic and environmental quality are becoming increasingly important because of their impact on people’s quality of life. This paper aims to build a well-being index for dwellings in the central districts of Madrid that can help the urban managers to take decisions increasing citizens’ well-being. For this purpose, we have developed an indicator using the P2-distance method on a database of variables related to environmental quality, and on the other hand, variables related to the characteristics of the dwelling. We find that, in general, the distance to services variables correlates negatively with the well-being index as we expected. On the other side, a positive and unexpected correlation is observed between the well-being index and the variables of pollution and noise, which indicates that these variables are usually higher in the points best located with respect to basic services, places that we could consider as service centers of the central almond. Therefore, the index allows urban planners to test complex solutions in presence of the trade-offs between elements that affect negatively the well-being such as noise or pollution, versus positive variables such as higher density of services availability.