Christopher L. Ambrey

Public greenspace and life satisfaction in urban Australia

This paper examines the influence of public greenspace on the life satisfaction of residents of Australia’s capital cities. A positive relationship is found between the percentage of public greenspace in a resident’s local area and their self-reported life satisfaction, on average corresponding to an implicit willingness-to-pay of

Valuing Australia's protected areas: A life satisfaction approach

1172 in annual household income for a 1 per cent (143 square metres) increase in public greenspace. Additional results suggest that the value of greenspace increases with population density and that lone parents and the less educated benefit to a greater extent from the provision of public greenspace than the general population. In all, these results support existing evidence that public greenspace is welfare enhancing for urban residents and adequate allowance should be made for its provision when planning urban areas.

Could urban greening mitigate suburban thermal inequity?: the role of residents’ dispositions and household practices

This paper uses the life satisfaction approach to value Australias protected areas, grouped by International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) categories. We find significant positive life satisfaction effects of living in close proximity to protected areas in three of the seven categories. These life satisfaction effects correspond to implicit willingness-to-pays, in terms of annual household income, ranging from AUD

The Social Connectedness and Life Satisfaction Nexus: A Panel Data Analysis of Women in Australia

2950 to AUD

Life Satisfaction and Individual Willingness to Pay for Crime Reduction

9650 for a 1% increase in the extent of that category of protected area within an individuals local area. This study therefore provides insights for policy makers in estimating the benefits of non-market goods provision.

Happiness and footprints: assessing the relationship between individual well-being and carbon footprints

Over the past decade research on urban thermal inequity has grown, with a focus on denser built environments. In this letter we examine thermal inequity associated with climate change impacts and changes to urban form in a comparatively socio-economically disadvantaged Australian suburb. Local urban densification policies designed to counteract sprawl have reduced block sizes, increased height limits, and diminished urban tree canopy cover (UTC). Little attention has been given to the combined effects of lower UTC and increased heat on disadvantaged residents. Such impacts include rising energy expenditure to maintain thermal comfort (i.e. cooling dwellings). We used a survey of residents (n=230) to determine their perceptions of climate change impacts; household energy costs; household thermal comfort practices; and dispositions towards using green infrastructure to combat heat. Results suggest that while comparatively disadvantaged residents spend more on energy as a proportion of their income, they appear to have reduced capacity to adapt to climate change at the household scale. We found most residents favoured more urban greening and supported tree planting in local parks and streets. Findings have implications for policy responses aimed at achieving urban climate justice.

The role of natural capital in supporting national income and social welfare

ABSTRACT This study explores the interplay between time pressures at home and at work, social connectedness, and well-being as reported by Australian women. Specifically, taking advantage of longitudinal data (from the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey for the years 2001 to 2013) and employing the newly developed “blow up and cluster” estimation technique, this study finds there has been a marginal decline in the life satisfaction of Australian women. After accounting for changes in sociodemographic characteristics, a more pervasive negative trend in life satisfaction appears to be reported by both men and women, and both genders report higher levels of life satisfaction for greater levels of almost all measures of social connectedness. This study adds to a growing body of evidence pointing toward the importance of frequent and meaningful social connections to societal well-being, as well as the need to refocus attention on well-being in public-policy spheres.

The welfare cost of terrorism

Manning M., Fleming C. M. and Ambrey C. L. Life satisfaction and individual willingness to pay for crime reduction, Regional Studies. This paper uses the life satisfaction approach to estimate the intangible cost of crime in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Results show that: (1) property crime is negatively associated with life satisfaction; (2) the implicit willingness to pay to decrease property crime by one offence per 1000 residents in the local government area (LGA) in the previous 12 months is A

Demystifying residents' walking behaviors: Active transport in South East Queensland, Australia

82 per household (A

Ontological security, social connectedness and the well-being of Australia’s ageing baby boomers

32 per person); and (3) the difference in implicit willingness-to-pay estimates when using restricted windfall income compared with household income is considerable. These results are robust to a significant number of controls.