Measuring urban (im) mobility as deprivation

The purpose of the paper is to compute a multidimensional index to measure well-being through several dimensions (including mobility) for the São Paulo Metropolitan Area. The low accessibility can affect well-being and quality of life, thus according to the Capabilities approach, it could be a deprivation. The paper developed two strategies to answer these questions. The first strategy was to create an index to measure the different levels of accessibility to better represent the deprivation associated with the mobility dimension. The second strategy was to include the accessibility index into a multidimensional index of well-being and to analyze its consequences. The findings of this study showed that 20 of 39 municipalitiesfrom the São Paulo Metropolitan Area lowered their positions in the well-being ranking when the mobility dimension is incorporated into the multidimensional index. This study lights on the importance of urban mobility to the measurement of well-being and quality of life.