The article begins with a brief discussion on the conditions of life in the City of Bogota, Columbia before the leadership of Mayor Enrique Penalosa. It goes further and provides his leadership strategies that enhanced the quality of life to the residents of Bogota (Assadourian et al, 164). The main strategies employed by Mayor Enrique as indicated in the article, mainly focus on enhancing the intrinsic nature of human well-being through the provision of services, products and materials that meet the immediate needs of the people. Mayor Enrique, as mentioned in the article asserts that a city is not only successful due to materials wealth, but when its dwellers are happy (Assadourian et al, 165).
The other main issue covered in the article is the strategies that have been applied by other nations for instance the United States, Norway, Denmark and Belgium; these strategies basically focus on enhancing the well-being of the respective societies for example: The article indicates two main strategies that have been applied in the in the United States to enhance human well-being. One of the strategies involves unity among consumers to create an effective force that will ensure that suppliers provide their basic needs. Social ties is also another imperative issue covered within the article; the author alludes that good social relations are some of the most imperative issues in regard to high quality of life. I agree with the author on this issue; social ties have been considered an imperative aspect of social and economic development. Proper societal cohesion is important for peace and development (Gao et al, 16). It creates an appropriate platform for people to express their ideas, skills and share information for purposes of socio-economic development. However, in the current society, social relationship or social ties are experienced with a main challenge; increased used of social media platforms. This has affected social relationship in the sense that many people currently prefer spending significant amounts of time on the internet, rather than engage in physical interaction with one another (Gao et al, 18). Consequently, the author pin-points how human well-being can be measured; some of the issues that can be used to measure human well-being as indicated in the article are life expectancy, ecological health, school enrolment rates et cetera. I agree with the author on this perspective; a developed society is characterized by a high quality lifestyle among its members. This can only be determined by a healthy population with a high level of life expectancy and a high rate of knowledge acquisition indicated by high levels of school enrolment.
