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Abstract
Recent years have witnessed an increasing emphasis placed on planning systems in most advanced capitalist societies to develop a more sustainable urban development pattern, resulting in policies to increase residential densities. Although belief in the virtues of the compact city approach is now widespread among the policy community, questions remain relating to the ‘sustainability versus liveability’ implications of compact city environments. In this regard, while the public may support sustainability principles, there is a perception that high-density development poses too great a cost on individuals' quality of life. Combining both quantitative and qualitative research data, this paper evaluates the relationship between high-density living and neighbourhood satisfaction within the central city. Findings suggest that, in many instances, it is not high density per se that is the source of dissatisfaction for respondents, but rather other related factors such as environmental quality, noise, lack of community involvement, traffic and lack of services and facilities.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the Environmental Protection Agency's ERDTI Programme (funded from the National Development Plan) for funding and supporting this research project. They are also grateful to the comments and feedback from the three anonymous referees.
Notes
1. The authors thank Andrew MacLaran and Sinead Kelly from the Centre of Urban and Regional Studies, Trinity College Dublin, who kindly provided a list of new apartment developments built within Dublin's inner city between 1996–2006, which provided the basis for the sampling frame in this study.
2. The Quality of Life national survey was co-ordinated by Peter Clinch, Finbarr Brereton and Mark Scott, and was funded by the Urban Institute Ireland and the Environmental Protection Agency's ERDTI Programme.