Title: Urban sustainability and gross national happiness: a review of community well-being domains and dimensions

Authors: Haruna D. Musa; Mohd R. Yacob; Ahmad M. Abdullah; Mohd Y. Ishak

Addresses: Department of Environment Management, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia ' Department of Environment Management, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia ' Department of Environmental Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia ' Department of Environmental Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

Abstract: The effort in measuring well-being and happiness by plethora of different indicators and frameworks are stepping up globally, despite critics for not being accepted as the national indicator to promote subjective well-being due to the methodological approach and choices of dimensions employed. This study, reviews current research on community well-being measurement to justify the inclusion of different sustainability metrics to optimise outcomes for national happiness and urban sustainability. Forty-four (44) scientific articles were identified, out of 300 research studies drawn from the electronic data search from the world of science focusing on key dimensions: economic, social, environment, governance, politics, culture, and health. Finding shows that social dimension and objective approach remains the most studied on community well-being with few studies on subjective domain. Finding suggests that a multidisciplinary conceptual framework towards a holistic view is desirable to allow for a more theory-based tool to evaluate multidimensional issues of community well-being at all levels.

Keywords: community assessment; urban dimensions; subjective well-being; sustainable development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISD.2020.106228

International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development, 2020 Vol.14 No.2, pp.157 - 184

Received: 02 Feb 2017
Accepted: 04 Dec 2017
Published online: 02 Apr 2020 *

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