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Concepts of social sustainability based on social infrastructure and quality of life

Bojan Grum (Department of Valuations, European Faculty of Law, New University, Nova Gorica, Slovenia)
Darja Kobal Grum (Department of Psychology, University in Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia)

Facilities

ISSN: 0263-2772

Article publication date: 21 May 2020

Issue publication date: 10 September 2020

6727

Abstract

Purpose

There is a lack of theoretical and empirical studies regarding concepts of social sustainability based on social infrastructure. The idea of understanding this paper is that quality social infrastructure leads to the general quality of people’s life in the built environment and that is rounded up to social sustainability. This paper aims to integrate these concepts into the network, hereinafter referred to as a social sustainability model.

Design/methodology/approach

The methodology used in this paper is desk research. The authors follow methodological steps in the building of conceptual network: setting up a research problem; choice of databases; reviewing the literature and categorizing the selected data; identifying and default conceptual definition; integrating the concepts; synthesis and making it all make sense; and assembly and validating the concept. Through that, a large volume of bibliographic materials was scanned, and a limited number of documents have been reviewed and critiqued. The documents have been selected from varied disciplines, including social infrastructure, quality of life, social sustainability, urban sociology, housing policy as among the articles.

Findings

The result is the model which represents the links between social infrastructure (utility equipment, public infrastructure, vital objects and fundamentals) and further between factors inside quality of life structure (users, quality of life, reflections). The result is the model which representing the links between social infrastructure (utility equipment, public infrastructure, vital objects and fundamentals) and further between factors inside well-being structure (users, quality of life, reflections).

Research limitations/implications

There is a potential risk of errors arising from the use of assumptions, limited desk reviews and data from secondary resources.

Originality/value

The authors portray the development of social sustainability model. Within this model, the authors can critically observe all levels within the existing built environment: user responses to the built environment, their satisfaction, social inclusion, health, etc. Within this model, they can observe the links between existing research, their frequency, capture, direction and not least to determine which areas have not been explored and where the lacks of research are. The conclusion outlines the framework and its main concepts of social sustainability based on social infrastructure and well-being, including their theoretical premises and components.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Slovenian Research Agency (research core funding No. (P5-0110) and project (Development of social infrastructure and services for community based long-term care, ID J6-9396)).

Citation

Grum, B. and Kobal Grum, D. (2020), "Concepts of social sustainability based on social infrastructure and quality of life", Facilities, Vol. 38 No. 11/12, pp. 783-800. https://doi.org/10.1108/F-04-2020-0042

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited

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