The Concept and Measurement of Community Well-Being: Lessons for Planners

Community well-being is considered a fundamental element of planning practice. However, it is not clear whether, and how explicitly, well-being is addressed in community (i.e. towns or cities) strategies or policy documents. If so, is theconcept used implicitly or explicitly? We reviewed policy documents from the 20 largest individual communities in Canada. Our findings suggest considerable difficulty with translation of data on well-being domains into actionable policy items. Canadian communities tend to focus on traditional, quantitative indicators of well-being. The more nuanced, subjective assessments of well-being are typically not reflected in Canadian communities' strategies, plans, programs or policies.