A Brave New World? Limitations of well-being as an aim in policy and quantitative models of place

This event has ended.

Governments and urban planners have long used quantitative models to compare different options for future developments and inform the decision making process. With the benefit of hindsight, the measures chosen (e.g. economic performance, road congestion, etc) have not always helped.

The current trend of directly measuring subjective well-being appears to strike directly at what society is trying to achieve, so might offer a way forward: in Welsh legislation, climate risks are ultimately framed as impacting the well-being of future generations. 

However, spatial sorting effects make it hard to model the impact of place on well-being. Also, the use of well-being as a policy aim is itself problematic, as it leaves distributional questions unanswered, and risks exploiting those who are most willing to lower their expectations. At this seminar, alternative approaches will be discussed.

PLACE seminars are free to attend and open to all.