Compact cities: everyday life, governance and the built environment: an annotated bibliography and literature review

Abstract

This publication comprises a literature review on quality of life in compact cities from a social scientific perspective. Though compact cities are generally thought to be the most sustainable urban form, it is debateable whether or not such cities do perform better across social, economic or bio-physical environmental measures. Furthermore, urban intensification and consolidation is often rejected and resisted by urban residents who prefer low-density, suburban settings. Consequently, cities continue to ‘sprawl’. This publication has four parts. Part one is an essay reviewing and synthesising lessons from the articles presented in the subsequent three sections. These sections each address a particular aspect of quality of life in the city: its form (part 2), the way it is governed and managed (part 3) and the ways in which people relate with each other and with ‘nature’ in the urban context (part 4).