The Development and Application of a Community Wellbeing Index in Korean Metropolitan Cities

Local governments play an important role in enhancing wellbeing. Quality of life (QOL) indicators and community indicators have been used by local governments in this role, but have been limited to description rather than diagnosis. This paper argues that community wellbeing (CWB) is a value-centered principle that can provide guidance to local governments. The paper deals with measurement as an important step for operationalizing this concept in public policy. Existing CWB measures are examined and in response to their shortcomings, a new CWB index is presented. The index is applied to the sixteen metropolitan cities of South Korea and compared with QOL measurements. The results imply that the measurement tool presented in this paper is a more comprehensive index that shows a different assessment of local communities compared to previous QOL measurements. Based on these results, the paper gives academic and practical implications for CWB as a policy tool. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014