Transportation, Location, and Subjective Well-Being

摘要

Promoting access—by increasing proximity to opportunities and providing transportationresources—is a fundamental goal of urban planning. However, there has been little study of howaccess contributes to individuals' evaluation of their quality of life, or subjective well-being(SWB). This study utilizes data from the Gallup/Healthways Well-Being Index, a survey on abroad range of topics including SWB. I added questions about transportation. Moreover, Imerged in much data on subjects' locations. I utilize OLS regression and find that, all else equal,the important contributors to SWB are age (SWB highest in the young and old), physical health(+), emotional health (+), income and wealth (+), female gender (+), employment (theunemployed are least happy), social time (+), religiosity (+), and Hispanic or African-Americanethnicity (+). These relationships are in line with the literature. Transportation resources,including the ability to walk, vehicle ownership, and location near a rail transit station arepositively and significantly associated with SWB. However, characteristics of the metropolitanarea transportation system (including freeway congestion) are not significant. Proximity is lessimportant than transportation. Subjects' distances from the nearest central business district andthe presence of nearby jobs and shopping have little measurable relationship with SWB. Localpopulation density is negatively associated with SWB. The presence of leisure and culturalactivities in subjects' metropolitan area is not related to SWB, calling into question the accessbenefits of big city life. The general lack of significance for location-related variables suggeststhat physical surroundings are of limited import.