Uploaded on 2017-03-14 by Angie Ramon

How would you measure livability? 1. How would you define livability? As I said in some forum I think the livability as forming part of the sustainability equation and concerns the culture of the municipality rather than politically motivated short-term initiatives. Livability also means to combine satisfactorily those opposing forces, controlling development of the town, expansion of the population, and economic opportunity without reducing the social and natural capital that gives the town its competitive edge and character. 2. If you need to define livability with the following terms, how would you rank them? My ranking: 1. Housing; 2. Health; 3. Transportation; 4. Opportunity; 5. Environment;6. Neighborhood; 7.Engagement 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. Santa Monica, Nueva Orleans and Washington 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. 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. City Livability score Customized livability score Change (+/-) Santa Monica 51 50 -1 Nueva Orleans 57 56 -1 Washington DC 58 57 -1 6. Can you explain the change in livability scores of your cities? Do this on basis of the terms in your ranking. Housing and Health are the most important criteria in my ranking because I think they represent the basic needs of the population without which a city cannot be considered sustainable. Once those needs were met, we can talk about transportation, opportunities etc. So people are better able to interact with their neighbors, move in the city looking for a job, to shops, to leisure activities and almost everywhere else we want to go, caring for the environment and to participate in the city politics. Santa Monica is very poor in housing, in both cases access and affordability, but this deficiency is offset by good scores at health particularly because, since data from the “aarp index”, 97,3 % of people have access to , above US average, and a 66 % of patients were satisfied, (in the US average). Regarding the intermediate values - as I have put in my ranking - low rating on environment, contributes to reducing livability scores, but not too much because of the proportional distribution. A very similar case is Nueva Orleans, albeit for different reasons. This city have a good housing ratio because there are many subsidized houses, housing options and affordability is in the US average, but the bad quality of its health system leads scores down. Engagement, environment and transportation get the balance right making the difference between the proposal ranking and mine, practically imperceptible. The two strongest points of Washington DC are transportation and engagement, but has however a low score at opportunities and environment, so it lose one point as the result of applying my ranking.