WHY MEASURE HAPPINESS AND WELLBEING IN THE CITIES?

More than half of the world’s population is living in cities and urban areas and this is predicted to rise to 70% in 2050. The scale of city growth presents new social, economic and environmental challenges for those who live, work and does business in them. Safety and security, public health, a sense of belonging are just a few of the factors that contribute to the happiness for urban citizens and well-being across the world. How do we create a city for its people and who are the parties that need to come together to do this? Which long-term visions as well as simple next steps can they develop in the face of rapid urbanization? Are we happy with our quality of life? The need to develop and implement systematic measures of wellbeing has become an international priority, largely because of the increasing focus on sustainable develop­ment. For example, in June 2007, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and De­velopment (OECD), the European Commission, the World Bank, the United Nations and the Organization of the Islamic Conference issued a joint proclamation that focused on the fundamental importance of developing new and expanded measurements of prog­ress.

The proclamation affirmed the organization’s…“commitment to measuring and fostering progress of societies in all their dimensions and to supporting initiatives at the country level. We urge statistical offices, public and private organizations, and academic experts to work alongside representatives of their communities to produce high-quality facts-based information that can be used by all of society to form a shared view of soci­etal well-being and its evolution over time. We invite both public and private organiza­tions to contribute to this ambitious effort to foster the world’s progress and we wel­come initiatives at the local, regional, national and international level.” The notion of well-being is also central to our conceptions of health and healthy com­munities. For example, the definition of health that is used by the World Health Organi­zation gives primacy to wellbeing - “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

Most definitions of well-being have emphasized the notion of living a happy and sat­isfying life. In recent years, this notion has become the primary theme in the measure­ment of the concept - self-reported happiness and life-satisfaction.  GDP seems to be growing, but most people feel that the quality of life has become a rat race. The GDP as a concept does not measure or under-count what households and civil society produce. They certainly do not incorporate any measure of inequalities, since the average per capita GDP can disguise the sense of growing disparity. Most of all, GDP statistics do not measure at all environmental degradation or the decay of physical infrastructure around us. Nevertheless, as governments and companies prepare for the recovery, it is more timely than ever to think beyond GDP (gross domestic product), namely not the quantity of how much we produce or consume, but its quality.

Thus a new metric of human well-being should capture these dimensions economic and job security, health, education, personal and work environment, a sense of equality and respect, connectivity with family and friends, a pleasant natural environment, and physical security.In many parts of Asia, we are struggling with crumbling social infrastructure, overcrowding, environmental pollution and social disquiet. Social injustice is being expressed even in very wealthy and successful Asian cities. This month, we were stunned by the random and violent shooting of politicians and the crowd in Arizona. All of a sudden, we are reminded that in addition to our material living standards, such as income, most of us care a lot about our personal and physical security. What can governments and civil societies do? The Stiglitz Report is a very useful reminder that we should begin by measuring what people care about, not just in terms of the quantity of production or consumption, but the quality of well-being.T he report reminds us that GDP is a very narrow concept and does not measure many qualitative issues that human beings care about.

As Asia is going through rapid changes in demographics, urbanisation and social change, it is not surprising that the metrics that we are using to measure our economic success or failure is not up-to-date. It is as if we are driving a car whose speedometer shows that we are accelerating at 70 miles per hour, but there is no indication that we may be going into a bad neighbourhood or that the car may be falling apart. Indeed, if we focus on speed, we may neglect the direction that we are heading towards. Speed comes before a crash. Globalisation has created huge opportunities as well as threats. Governments need to appreciate that in the global competition for talent, people can easily walk with their feet. But they will not walk if they love the city or country-side they live in. We all want a sense of liveability clean air, good health, great culture, nice people, no fear of physical security. Well-being is a sense of community that people care for each other, a feeling of being more equal and mutual respect. We should not see strangers as another mugger, nor a policeman as a person to be feared. We want good governance in our society, most of all a caring community that looks after the poor, the weak and the under-privileged. As governments struggle with how to deliver better governance, we need to begin with better measures of social well-being than GDP.