The study of subjective welfare or perceived quality of life (QoL) is currently a topic of interest in the social sciences due to its implications for the design and evaluation of social and economic policies. To this end, this paper focuses on two main tasks: a) to measure the QoL of households in the city of Medellín, Colombia, using conventional multivariate statistical techniques to construct an indicator; and b) by means of the indicator, determine if the living standards of households in Medellín are distributed randomly in space or present a significant association of similar (dissimilar) values between nearby zones. The results reveal a spatially varying distribution of QoL in the city of Medellín and clusters of neighborhoods where, depending on the indicator variables, the best and worst QoL as perceived by the city’s inhabitants is concentrated. The best conditions are found to be concentrated in the central-western and south-eastern areas of the city, while the rest of the city has the greatest needs. © 2020 Ascociacion Internacional de Economia Aplicada. All rights reserved.