Urban Living And Quality Of Life: Exploring The Perception – Expectation Gap

Urban living, once synonymous with better amenities, infrastructural facilities and a higher standard of living, has gradually come under severe strain due to ill-planned and un-restrained growth. Infrastructure development has not kept pace with the rapid expansion of many a tier I and tier II city, leading to congestion, poor quality of water supply, sewerage and housing. The lack of basic amenities reflects on the poor quality of life being led by the average urban dweller. Quality of life is a complex, multi-dimensional concept which is open to diverse interpretations. In its broadest sense, the concept refers to all those factors which improve the 'well-being' of the people. It goes beyond the material indicators of money, access to good and services, infrastructure and so on. The concept is measured using both subjective and objective indicators. While the objective indicators of living standards are easy to measure, the subjective indicators, forming an integral part of an individual's perception of quality of life, are complex. The current study examines the optimal physical attributes desired by the residents of a tier II city. The 28-item scale has been adapted to the SERVQUAL model to study the expectation versus the perception of the quality of life of the residents of the city of Lucknow. The quality of life assessment of the residents can well provide a direction to the planners regarding the factors having the maximum gap and hence, the greatest impact on the urban resident.