Urbanization and Subjective Well-Being

This chapter proposes a review of the most recent works developed by the authors on the association between urbanization and subjective well-being. While most previous studies point out a strong dichotomy between urban and rural areas, the latter being characterized by higher levels of well-being than the former, the research program presented here aims at overcoming this perspective. Specifically, it focuses on three elements that are assumed to influence the role of urbanization on subjective well-being: the nature of externalities generated by cities of different kinds, the spatial accessibility to these externalities and the temporal dimension. Empirical results show that all these factors are important determinants of individuals’ well-being, whose association with urbanization is more complex than generally assumed.