Quality of life, socio-economic status and perceptions of public facilities and services in small town America
International Journal of Development Research
Quality of life, socio-economic status and perceptions of public facilities and services in small town America
Received 05th October, 2017; Received in revised form 21st November, 2017; Accepted 07th December, 2017; Published online 31st January, 2018
Copyright ©2018, Berneece Herbert et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The quality of life in small rural American towns is thought to be linked to residents’ socio-economic status and civic welfare outcomes measured through objective indicators such as education, poverty, and income. However, subjective indicators, such as space qualities and access to community services and facilities are also considered to have a significant impact on quality of life. Using place-level data, this study examines Colony, a small rural Alabama town and evaluates the opinions of the residents with regards to their quality of life and well-being. The quality of life was found to be highly dependent on space quality and opportunities for the well-being of inhabitants. The findings seem to indicate that subjective indicators are as useful in explaining variations in overall levels of quality of life and changes in levels of quality of life compared with socio-economic characteristics.
