A Conceptual Framework to Visualise Liveability

The paper presents an alternative conceptual framework to theorise urban liveability. It reviews two urban liveability measurement methodologies to identify the existing understanding of liveability in practice and literature. The paper highlights the lacunas of theorising liveability through the utility-based approaches and proposes a framework to establish liveability through a non-utilitarian approach. It adopts the central argument of the capability approach to insinuate liveability through human well-being, functioning, capability, and freedom. In present literature Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum, Sabina Alkire have discussed the capability approach extensively. It also discusses the ethical arguments of John Rawls and the egalitarian considerations of Ronald Dworkin to establish the uniqueness of the capability approach and to theorise liveability. The paper contributes toward a structured and systematic review of the existing methods to theorise and measure liveability and presents a comprehensive conceptual alternative framework to measure liveability.