Aarau Study: Quality of Life, Satisfaction and Legitimacy

This paper presents a novel data-driven approach to address challenges faced by city policymakers concerning the distribution of public funds. Providing budgeting processes for improving quality of life based on objective (data-driven) evidence has been so far a missing element in policy-making. This paper focuses on a case study of 1,204 citizens in the city of Aarau, Switzerland, and analyzes survey data containing insightful indicators that can impact the legitimacy of decision-making. Our approach is twofold. On the one hand, we aim to optimize the legitimacy of policymakers' decisions by identifying the level of investment in districts and projects that offer the greatest return in legitimacy. To do so, we introduce a new context-independent legitimacy metric for policymakers. This metric allows us to distinguish between neighborhoods with decisive vs. indecisive collective preferences regarding investment within project sectors and districts, enabling policymakers to prioritize impactful bottom-up consultations and participatory initiatives (e.g., participatory budgeting). The metric also allows policymakers to identify the optimal number of investments in various project sectors and districts (in terms of legitimacy gain), which can optimize the top-down investment. On the other hand, we aim to offer guidance to policymakers concerning which satisfaction and participation factors influence citizens' quality of life through an accurate classification model and an evaluation of relocations. By doing so, policymakers may be able to further refine their strategy, making targeted investments with significant benefits to citizens' quality of life. These findings are expected to provide transformative insights for practicing direct democracy in Switzerland and a blueprint for policy-making to adopt worldwide.

本文提出了一种新颖的数据驱动方法，以应对城市决策者在公共资金分配方面面临的挑战。基于客观（数据驱动）证据制定预算流程以改善生活质量，在政策制定中一直是缺失的要素。本文聚焦于瑞士阿劳市1204名公民的案例研究，分析包含影响决策合法性的深刻指标的调查数据。我们的方法分为两部分：一方面，通过确定能带来最大合法性回报的地区和项目投资水平，优化决策者决策的合法性。为此，我们引入了一个新的、与背景无关的决策者合法性指标（legitimacy metric），该指标可区分社区在项目部门和地区投资方面的决定性与非决定性集体偏好，使决策者能够优先考虑有影响力的自下而上咨询和参与性举措（如参与式预算）；另一方面，通过准确的分类模型和搬迁评估，为决策者提供关于哪些满意度和参与因素影响公民生活质量的指导。借此，决策者可进一步完善策略，开展针对性投资以显著提升公民生活质量。这些发现有望为瑞士直接民主实践提供变革性见解，并为全球政策制定提供蓝图。