Quality of life in Saskatoon: Achieving a healthy, sustainable community

This paper undertakes an intra-urban comparison of quality of life (QOL) for three sets of neighbourhoods in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The objective of the paper is to determine how the characteristics of different neighbourhoods or locales influence QOL for persons of similar socioeconomic status (SES). It is part of a larger project that uses a multi-stakeholder approach to develop and use QOL indicators to achieve a healthier, more sustainable community. The results reported in this paper are based on a comprehensive survey of over 900 households, and asked respondents for their subjective assessment of a set of domains associated with QOL. It was found that there was not a statistically significant difference among residents in the three sets of neighbourhoods in their perception of personal QOL, personal stress, or change in overall life satisfaction, even though education and income were significantly different. However, when composite variables were derived as indicators of level of social cohesion, satisfaction with relationships and resident's own neighbourhoods, there were significant intra-urban differences. In addition, there were highly significant differences across a wide range of variables between the Low SES areas on the one hand, and the High SES and Medium SES neighbourhoods on the other. This suggests that the growing gap between rich and poor in Canada is being reflected in perception of quality of life.