Residents` perception on the quality of life in Bandar Tun Razak area of Kuala Lumpur city, Malaysia

Abstract

In recent years, the world has been experiencing rapid urban growth. Many people around the world have chosen to move and settle in urban areas. It is well known that this urbanisation phenomenon has increased economic growth and development of cities. However, at the same time, several serious urban-associated problems have emerged. Taking all these problems into consideration, the quality of life (QOL) of people who inhabit urban areas become highly unclear since it is argued that places where people live affect their QOL. As a result, many public and corporate commercial agencies have been interested to measure the QOL of cities and nations and to rank them accordingly. According to these agencies, Malaysia occupies relatively advanced rankings which indicate that people in Malaysia enjoy good QOL. Nevertheless, these achievements mostly represent QOL at the national and city levels through objective indicators and ignoring individuals’ perceptions, evaluations, and aspirations at small spatial scales such as neighbourhoods. Therefore, this research aims to explore residents’ perceptions of QOL at the neighbourhood level through assessment of residents’ satisfaction with seven life domains that contribute to the overall QOL. The chosen study area is the Bandar Tun Razak area which is considered one of six strategic zones in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In order to measure subjective QOL in that area, a stratified convenient sample of 331 survey questionnaires is distributed in the study area to ensure that different housing types are covered. The research applies three types of analysis: descriptive statistics, correlation matrix analysis, and structural equation modelling. As a result, it is found that respondents are unsatisfied with the economic capacity and safety conditions. Besides, they are slightly satisfied with the home condition, the functional environment, and social involvement and community participation while they are moderately satisfied with physical and emotional health and spiritual life. However, in regard to the overall QOL of the neighbourhood, respondents perceive it as moderately good. The findings of the research also reveal that the overall QOL in the study area is positively correlated to all life domains but is highly correlated to spiritual life. Moreover, the analysis presents that respondents’ characteristics such as gender, age, ethnicity and household income play an important role in the satisfaction level in some particular life domains. Eventually, the path analysis reveals that only economic capacity, social involvement and community participation, physical and emotional health, and spiritual life affect the overall QOL directly whereas home condition, functional environment, and safety condition do not influence the overall QOL significantly. At the end, several recommendations and policy implications are suggested that seek to improve QOL in Bandar Tun Razak area based on the research findings.