A Spatial Understanding of Well-Being in the City of Toronto

Social Capital is an emergent field of study that has the potential of applications in a wide variety of fields, from public health to economics, but most widely for human well-being. This study is a spatial and statistical analysis of the relation between commonly accepted indicators of wellbeing, commonly accepted indicators of social capital, and socio-economic factors within Toronto, as well as their respective spatial patterns. This research discovered that within Toronto there does not exist a clear link between wellbeing and social capital indicators, both in terms of statistical regression analysis and spatial pattern comparison. The results suggest that, at least within the context of Toronto, much of the research surrounding the effects of high social capital on wellbeing are not applicable, at least using the methods demonstrated in this study.