Reframing urban livability through stakeholder salience: A citizen-centered model

Livability has become a central objective in urban governance, yet despite its growing prominence, the concept remains vague, normative, and often detached from the lived realities of citizens. This study adopts a citizen-centered perspective to examine how citizens perceive and prioritize stakeholders that shape urban livability. Focusing on Vienna, one of the world’s most livable cities, we employ a sequential mixed-method design combining survey data (n = 1787 respondents), media analysis (n = 39 conflict cases), and five conjoint experiments (n = 1354 respondents). Drawing on stakeholder salience theory, we operationalize four attributes, that is, power, legitimacy, urgency, and proximity through contextual indicators such as voting rights, language proficiency, geographic proximity, and economic contribution. The findings show that stakeholder salience is perceived along a continuum rather than through fixed categories. Citizens’ evaluations are shaped by these contextual attributes, which cut across multiple salience dimensions and determine whose claims are recognized in urban governance. The results demonstrate that stakeholder recognition is discursively constructed rather than predetermined, calling for a refinement of stakeholder salience theory toward a more citizen-centered model. In doing so, this study highlights the need for governance mechanisms that address structural inequities and better integrate citizens’ everyday experiences into urban decision-making.