Liveable, healthy, sustainable: What are the key indicators for Melbourne neighbourhoods?

This research paper, the first arising from this research program, provides an overview of current academic and policy literature on liveability indicators. This literature review is intended to inform future work on the impact of planning policy on health and wellbeing outcomes. It is also intended to inform the current framework of Community Indicators Victoria, a state-wide resource for engaging communities and local governments around wellbeing, and MUtopia, a modelling and visualisation platform for developing sustainable precincts. All of these projects have a strong interest in developing indicators that are evidence-based, specific and quantifiable, relevant to the Australian policy context, and able to be measured at both city-wide and neighbourhood-level scales. The literature review found a strong overlap between the concepts of liveability and social determinants of health, with environmental sustainability being an underlying determinant of both health and liveability. Eleven policy domains were identified that influence liveability. However, many if not most, indicators found in the literature review need further development and testing if they are to be useful for measuring disparities within cities, and can be conclusively linked to changes in behaviour or health and wellbeing outcomes