Quality of Life Outcomes of the Smarter Growth Neighborhood Design Principles: Case Study City of Kelowna

SMARTer Growth (SG) Neighbourhood Design principles have evolved out of extensive research on exploring ways to make development patterns and housing forms into more livable and sustainable communities. SG has been investigated in several studies that report on its key features; however, no study has been able to draw on any systematic research into evaluating the impact of the full-fledged SG principles on community quality of life (QoL). Numerous studies suggest that measuring the influence of neighbourhood design on QoL is exceedingly complex. In addition, the wide variation of the proposed QoL indicators reflects how there is no global agreement on the definition of QoL nor the importance of the factors that influence it. Therefore, this paper will not attempt to develop the perfect neighborhood system design that ‘maximizes’ human QoL. Rather, it aims to identify a reliable suite of empirical tools that could be utilized by engineers to objectively evaluate key factors of a neighbourhood’s design using previously researched QoL metrics. In particular, six tools are utilized in this research, to evaluate the QoL outcomes of hypothetically retrofitting neighbourhoods in the city of Kelowna using the SG principles, including i-Thrive, air quality, noise pollution, walkability, bikeability, and playability. The results show that applying the SG principles in the three urban centres resulted in an increase in the i-THRIVe score, walkability, bikeability, and playability and a decrease in noise pollution. However, the SG scenario resulted in an increase in traffic air pollution compared to the business as usual scenario.