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Subjective Quality of Life in Queensland: Comparing Metropolitan, Regional and Rural Areas

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Investigating Quality of Urban Life

Part of the book series: Social Indicators Research Series ((SINS,volume 45))

Abstract

The chapter provides a comparison of the subjective assessment of quality of life (QOL) across different scales of urban communities in Queensland, Australia. Univariate and multivariate analyses of survey data relating to respondents’ assessments of four main attributes of urban environments are presented, namely, access to services and facilities, noise pollution, incivilities and social capital. Specific hypotheses are tested to determine if and how subjective QOUL in regional cities and towns differ from those in metropolitan and rural areas, and which main attributes of urban environments best distinguish regional cities and towns from metropolitan and rural areas.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Since access to services and facilities was highly skewed, a Kruskal–Wallis test was also conducted using mean ranked scores to confirm that this also varied significantly across the urban size categories (p  <  .001). The pattern of variation was the same.

  2. 2.

    Bonferroni corrections were used to limit the family-wise error rate to.05.

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Acknowledgement

The 2008 Living in Queensland Survey was funded as part of an Australian Research Council Linkage Project (#LP0775040) with additional support from the Queensland Public Sector Union (QPSU).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Social Science Research, The University of Queensland, Level 4, GPN3 Building, Campbell Road, St Lucia, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia

    Rod McCrea & Mark Western

  2. School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia

    Tung-Kai Shyy

Authors
  1. Rod McCrea
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  2. Mark Western
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  3. Tung-Kai Shyy
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rod McCrea .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Inst. Social Research, University of Michigan, Thompson St. 426, Ann Arbor, 48106-1248, Michigan, USA

    Robert W. Marans

  2. Network (AURIN), University of Melbourne, Architecture Building and Planning, Australian Urban Research Infrastructure, Melbourne, 3010, Victoria, Australia

    Robert J. Stimson

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McCrea, R., Western, M., Shyy, TK. (2011). Subjective Quality of Life in Queensland: Comparing Metropolitan, Regional and Rural Areas. In: Marans, R., Stimson, R. (eds) Investigating Quality of Urban Life. Social Indicators Research Series, vol 45. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1742-8_13

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