Uploaded on 2016-12-28 by Hannah Bessett

1. How would you define livability? To me, livability is mostly defined by an individual's ability to have adequately sized, clean space to have their house or flat. While aspects such as transportation and opportunity are important, I think that these basic needs are most crucial to defining a city as 'livable.' Not only does it tie into the health of the city's citizens, but also the secondary criteria of environmental comfort. I cannot help but believe that once the simplest of challenges are met, the rest will develop organically. Once people realize that there are well maintained homes for them to live in, they will come to reside in the area and set up their businesses. Means of transportation as well as new roads will be built in order to reach these places, and so it all forms an interconnected web that draws all of the various definitions of criteria into a single, coherent city. 2. If you need to define livability with the following terms, how would you rank them? (1: most important - 7: least important) Terms Rankings - housing (affordability and access) 2 - neighborhood (access to life, work and play) 6 - transportation (safe and convenient options) 5 - environment (clean air and water) 1 - health (prevention, access and quality) 3 - engagement (civic and social involvement) 7 - opportunity (inclusion and possibilities) 4 3. Choose three cities in the United States (preferable cities in different states) and go to the following webpage: https://livabilityindex.aarp.org. Search for the chosen cities at the livability index. 1. Thornton, Colorado 2. Anchorage, Alaska 3. Tulsa, Oklahoma 4. Have a look at the livability scores. How high is the livability score of every city? Please note the scores of this question in a table like the one below. Click on "customize this score" and customize the scores according to your rankings for question 2. Shift all the bars to the left (less important), except the term which is most important to you. Shift the bar of your "number one" to the right (more important). City Livability Score Customized Livability Score Thornton, Colorado 50 54 Anchorage, Alaska 52 51 Tulsa, Oklahoma 46 41 5. How much has the livability score of every city changed? Please note the scores of this question in a table like the one below. Change (+/-) +4 -1 -5 6. Can you explain the change in livability scores of your cities? Do this on a basis of the terms in your ranking (e.g. Transport is very important to me. When I customized the term Transportation at the Livability index into a higher importance, the total livability score went down. This means that...). Thornton's lowest score was in engagement, which is of little importance to me as long as the other criteria are being fulfilled. The score improved when I ranked it of low importance, as did my higher ranking of environment, which had a high score. This means that Thornton is not overly involved in civic or social matters, but is a clean, affordable place to live. Anchorage, on the other hand, got a negative change because of my high ranking of housing. It appears that either housing is difficult to find or that it is expensive and not everyone can attain it. Lastly, Tulsa got the biggest score change because of the environment and health ranking. This suggests that not only is the area not very clean, but access to medicine is not readily available. I would look into improving the energy usage and education in Tulsa to improve their results.