Building Well-Being: Neighbourhood Flourishing and Approaches for Participatory Urban Design Intervention

The characterisation of individual Subjective Well-being (SWB) is increasingly robust, whereas social SWB at neighbourhood-level is not. We propose a preliminary framework for neighbourhood flourishing: strong SWB among neighbourhood residents. Urban design may positively affect neighbourhood flourishing. We demonstrate the utility of the framework in designing neighbourhoods via participatory case studies, using two approaches: Health Impact Assessment (HIA) and Extreme and Participatory Citizen Science (EPaCS). We show promising links between residents’ participation, urban design factors and neighbourhood flourishing outcomes. Our cases reveal resources, problems, and solutions not necessarily uncovered by technical ‘experts’, increasing the likelihood of supporting neighbourhood flourishing. We conclude that EPaCS and HIA have potential for the application of our framework. Neighbourhood flourishing may be a key yardstick by which urban environments and participatory processes should be judged. We recommend that the framework and its application be developed further via collaboration between academics, policy-makers, practitioners and communities.