A physical setting like a place, street or an entire city can be considered liveable if it is pleasant for human beings to linger. Liveability takes into consideration all dimensions that affect human beings as a multisensorial and social being, i.e. noise, air quality, temperature, radiation, vibration and perceptions of safety, the ease of desired social interactions etc.
The notion of liveability stands in contrast to quality criteria which give precedent to various technical optimisation principles like traffic throughput.