What is a livable urban environment?
The Urban Amenity Focus Group developed the term ‘liveable urban environment’ to express the idea of a place that is good to live, work, and play—an urban environment where people enjoy a high quality of life. The Focus Group also used the term ‘liveable built environment’ to mean the same thing.
The term ‘liveable’ isn’t limited to traditional residential areas, but applies to any urban environment—it might also apply to central city revitalisation.
Urban and built … what’s the difference?
Essentially, ‘urban’ is about people, and ‘built’ is about buildings.
An ‘urban environment’ is any street, town, suburb or city with more than a thousand people. This uses the classification of ‘urban’ developed by Statistics New Zealand.
A ‘built environment’ is one that has a high ratio of buildings and structures to open space, and where those buildings are used for a variety of purposes.
Obviously, an urban environment and a built environment are usually the same thing—a high population requires a high density of buildings. However, using the two terms in its research and publications enabled the Urban Amenity Focus Group to emphasise that urban amenity has two crucial aspects: the physical structures of the built environment, and the feelings and perceptions of the people living there.
