Residential satisfaction and quality of urban life: examining diverse housing environments
ISSN: 2631-6862
Article publication date: 27 December 2022
Issue publication date: 7 March 2024
Abstract
Purpose
As an important indicator of the quality of life of individuals, residential environments are continuing to evolve, due to the rapidly changing production–consumption relations. However, in this evolving process, the effect of the differentiated residential environments on the individuals' residential satisfaction remains unclear. This paper aims to measure the effects of the varying residential environments on the overall quality of urban life (QoUL) in Kayseri, one of the most developed cities in Central Anatolia.
Design/methodology/approach
It is based on empirical data on the quality of life in the different residential environments of Kayseri. The research method used stratified purposeful sampling, and the household survey data were analyzed using factor analysis, multiple regression and ANOVA statistical methods.
Findings
The most influential factors on the overall QoUL of individuals living in different Kayseri residential neighborhoods were satisfaction with neighborhood and city-level urban services, neighborhood relations and belonging factor groups. The critical finding obtained in this study is that residential satisfaction in low-rise and compact form housing areas in Kayseri is higher compared to residential satisfaction in high-rise neighborhoods. This result reveals that the high-rise building typology that is dominant in Turkey's big cities should be seriously questioned, and urban development policies should be re-evaluated.
Research limitations/implications
The study was designed to produce baseline data so that future changes in residential conditions as perceived by the residents of Kayseri could be monitored to support decisions for residential areas.
Originality/value
Comparative case studies, particularly on low-rise versus high-rise environments, are scarce. As a result, this research contributes to the field of comparative studies on residential environments.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This research is part of the doctoral dissertation of the corresponding author Merve Koçak Güngör, supervised by Professor Dr Fatih Terzi (the co-author of the paper). Ethics committee approval for this study was received from Istanbul Technical University Social and Human Sciences Human Experiments Ethics Committee with project number 127 dated 04.10.2019.
The authors sincerely thank Professor Handan Türkoğlu of Istanbul Technical University and Assistant Professor Süleyman Balyemez of Istanbul Aydın University for the assistance in contributing to this research.
Author’s Contribution: All authors contributed to the study and read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict of interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. The authors did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work.
Citation
Koçak Güngör, M. and Terzi, F. (2024), "Residential satisfaction and quality of urban life: examining diverse housing environments", Archnet-IJAR, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 58-80. https://doi.org/10.1108/ARCH-01-2022-0014
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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