Assessing the Impact of the Geographical Scale on the Maximum Distance Error: A Preliminary Step for Quality of Life Studies

Improving citizens' quality of life is a relevant research topic from long time. Several papers emphasized the geographical dimension of such a multidimensional problem. In a sub-category of those studies, the degree of satisfaction of the citizens’ needs is obtained by calculating the distance between the centroid of the polygon that expresses the boundary of the administrative district, within the city, where they live and the location of relevant public services in the area. An open issue is up to which geographical scale it is meaningful to push this approach. Our opinion is that the answer to such a question depends on the geography of the administrative units one refers to. So, the only way to know what to do consists in conducting a preliminary computation devoted to investigate the geometrical structure of the administrative units. In connection with this issue, our paper reports the findings of a case study regarding the three administrative levels of Italy.