The Quality of Life in Latin
American Cities : Markets and Perception

This book suggests how that exploration
should be undertaken, and how a monitoring system that has a
solid conceptual basis and is both easy to operate and
reasonable in cost can then be put into practice. Long the
ideal of many scholars and observers of urban problems, such
a system may now be close to realization. In this book,
examples of Latin American cities are used as case studies.
As argued in the first chapter, there are good reasons to
concentrate on Latin America: it is the world region with
the most rapid urban development and is the most urbanized
region in the developing world. In contrast to residents of
cities in poorer regions, Latin Americans have managed to
democratize homeownership and to extend basic services to
the majority of households. That means that improving the
Quality of Life (QoL) in Latin American cities is no longer
primarily a matter of bricks and mortar. But the challenges
are as large as they are diverse. Chapter two introduces the
reader to the hedonic price and the life satisfaction
approaches and presents a comparative summary of the
conclusions of the six case studies. This chapter, like the
first, is essential for the policy maker or activist in
urban affairs who wants to understand the possibilities of
the new systems for monitoring the quality of urban life.
Chapter three is a concise and self-contained introduction
to the economic theory on which the hedonic pricing and life
satisfaction approaches are based and which forms the
backbone of this book. Chapters four-eight then summarize
the most notable findings of the case studies, each
emphasizing a different topic and focus.