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Community Well-Being and Community Development pp 9–23Cite as

Searching for the Meaning of Community Well-Being

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Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Well-Being and Quality of Life Research ((BRIEFSWELLBEING))

Abstract

This chapter addresses definitions and meanings to provide a foundation for exploring dimensions of community well-being. It is compared and contrasted with similar terms such as happiness, quality of life, community development, and others. A framework for defining community well-being is provided, along with discussion of individual versus community levels.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The international forum, “What matters to people—well-being and progress,” took place on 5 June 2013 in Berlin, Germany.

  2. 2.

    This project is led by the National Council for Economics and Labour and the Italian National Institute of Statistics. The first BES (benessere equo sostenible) report is available in English at the following URL: http://www.misuredelbenessere.it/fileadmin/upload/Report_on_Equitable_and_Sustainable_Well-being_-_11_Mar_2013_-_Summary.pdf.

  3. 3.

    The current Park Geun Hye government has chosen citizen happiness as one of four keynote goals for national policies.

  4. 4.

    The Community Well-being Board has been established within the Local Government Association in the UK.

  5. 5.

    See Kim and Lee (2013) for examples of CWB measurements developed and utilized by local governments.

  6. 6.

    This Paradox refers to the phenomenon in which increasing levels of wealth were not connected to increasing levels of happiness.

  7. 7.

    The comparison of quantity and quality should not be confused with that of objective and subjective. The former refers to the characteristic of an object while the latter concerns the method of evaluation. For example, a community’s medical service can be high in quantity (e.g. number of hospitals) but low in quality (e.g. patient satisfaction of doctor visits). The quantity of this aspect can be evaluated both objectively (e.g. comparison to the average number of hospitals in communities of comparable size) and subjectively (e.g. resident evaluation of the number of hospitals).

  8. 8.

    As defined on www.investopedia.com.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Seung Jong Lee

  2. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Yunji Kim

Authors
  1. Seung Jong Lee
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  2. Yunji Kim
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Correspondence to Seung Jong Lee .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, Republic of (South Korea)

    Seung Jong Lee

  2. City & Regional Planning, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA

    Yunji Kim

  3. Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA

    Rhonda Phillips

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Lee, S.J., Kim, Y. (2015). Searching for the Meaning of Community Well-Being. In: Lee, S., Kim, Y., Phillips, R. (eds) Community Well-Being and Community Development. SpringerBriefs in Well-Being and Quality of Life Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12421-6_2

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