Urban Planning
Mojtaba Rafieian; shiva Ajilian; Aref Ahgasafari
Volume 5, Issue 19 , August 2016, , Pages 27-36
Abstract
Objectives: Housing has always been considered a need in different societies.This need more than its individual aspects, is considered a collective need. With the advent of the industrial revolution which was accmanied by unprecedented population growth and increasing urbanization , the issue of providing ...
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Objectives: Housing has always been considered a need in different societies.This need more than its individual aspects, is considered a collective need. With the advent of the industrial revolution which was accmanied by unprecedented population growth and increasing urbanization , the issue of providing housing for people in need who were sent to cities in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution was introduced and by the expansion of its dimensions became more important to include in government intervention programmes. . Thus, the housing problem, as a common issue in most of the world’s cities, is how to connect the creation and planning of cities with different economic, political, social and cultural contexts. Nowadays, the limited resources of the government and rapid increase in demand for housing do not provide housing for all members of society. Hence, the framework of national development goals, especially the prioritized economic and social goals specify the housing share of low-income groups. In Iran, different policies have been planned and executed. One of these policies is the “Mehr Housing Plan”. Despite being the greatest and most highly discussed national plan proposed for solving the housing problems of low-income groups, it has caused social problems and residents’ dissatisfaction. “Mehr Housing” project focuses attention on determining role of the land price in housing prices and the action to eliminate this variable, controlling the price of housing in this way, and facilitating access of vulnerable people to suitable housing, but it has ignored a set of key issues. Therefore, the main question is how to improve residents’ satisfaction and/or what principles to employ in the policies for satisfying housing of low-income groups in order to improve residents’ satisfaction and to prevent problems in these districts. Therefore, this research aims at analyzing the policies for planning low-income group housing (Mehr Housing Plan) by measuring residential satisfaction in the Mehregan Town, Mashhad and identifying its principles, sizes and variables.Therefore, surveyswere conducted according to fundamental research method and inductive and deductive analysis. Questionnaires were then used for conducting an opinion poll on the variables to achieve residential satisfaction in the Mehr Housing Plan. The questionnaire data was analyzed using factor analysis methods, regression analysis, and structural equations modeling. LISREL 8.5, PSS, and Smart PLS softwares were used.
Findings :a “holistic view” was introduced as one of the major principles in the residential satisfaction in the Mehr Housing Plan which prevented concentration on only some parts of the problems using an integrated view to problems. On the other hand, “community-driven development” allows taking advantage of local community assets and social capitals through the presence of residents in all Mehr Housing processes. This way, the measures of Mehr Housing become close to the residents’ views and finally their satisfaction is gained. In other words, the “holistic view” and community-driven development” principles are among the major policies of Mehr Housing policies; if they are considered as a basis for the measures of Mehr Housing along with “process-orientation” principle, residents will be satisfied with its outcome.
Results: Finally, the model for communication method of the principles are depicted and proposed. Finally, the influence of “community-driven development” based on the principle of a “holistic view” is discussed.
Urban Planning
Mohamad Javad Noori; Kaveh Asadpoor
Volume 5, Issue 18 , May 2016, , Pages 63-76
Abstract
Objectives: The “MEHR” housing project is one of the most recent projects undertaken by the Ministry of Roads & Urban Development. Despite the main aim of the project which is accommodating low income citizens, recent studies demonstrate that the living condition in these housing projects ...
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Objectives: The “MEHR” housing project is one of the most recent projects undertaken by the Ministry of Roads & Urban Development. Despite the main aim of the project which is accommodating low income citizens, recent studies demonstrate that the living condition in these housing projects is not satisfactory. The main aim of this article is to evaluate the satisfaction level of residents in Mehr housing project from residents’ perspectives through both qualitative and quantitative methods. “Exploratory Factor analysis” was used as the main method mainly due to its capability in analyzing the parameters which are affected by the context.
Findings: The findings of this article indicate that factor analysis causes a reduction in the number of satisfaction indicators from 71 to 22. Furthermore, application of “varimax rotation” in factor analysis method is due to its ability in correlating literature reviews with the result. In this article, KMO index was 0/611 which is considered in the standard range of factor analysis. Skewness & Kurtosis indexes was calculated to assess the normality of questionnaire data. Finally, normalization process show the various conditions of various factors. Eventually, cluster analysis presented the distribution of satisfaction in the study sample (150 households). In contrast to prior studies, this research identified a four-level structure for Mehr housing project satisfactory factors (housing units, housing buildings; housing site, surrounding area of the site)
Results: The results show that the most important factors in the residents’ dissatisfaction in “MEHR” housing project were the lack of access to primary civic services (educational, religious and security), lack of activity centers, the need for pedestrian-oriented and mixed use development, insufficient surveillance and low maintenance service on the interior spaces of housing units, high level of environmental pollutants and lack of recreational spaces. The findings of this article show that 76 percent of households were not satisfied with the quality of their life. The result of this article would help the executive agencies of “MEHR” housing projects, in considering the satisfaction level of residents. This article also demonstrates that "shelter making" alone cannot be considered a comprehensive satisfactory parameter for low income households because the essential needs of individuals is to live in a well-designed community and not just in a shelter. Therefore, this article recommends to first assess the future needs of residents prior to the development process. People who live in Dehaqan Mehr housing were found to be satisfied with having a shelter but the quality of life was not acceptable due to the factors discussed. The main factors causing serious problems in this Mehr housing project were identified to be related to its infrastructures and social and health issues as Finally, it is worth mentioning that the city management system of “MEHR” housing project has to invest on short term actions, first to build a school, a mosque and a police station and second to allocate the best places for communal activities (such as markets, green spaces and cultural centers).
Urban Planning
negin mozafari; bita latifi; naser barakpour
Volume 5, Issue 17 , February 2016, , Pages 77-92
Abstract
Residential satisfaction has been a major and popular research topic for the following reasons. First, individual's evaluations of housing and neighborhoods determine the way they respond to residential environment and form the basis for public policy feedback. Second, residential satisfaction is recognized ...
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Residential satisfaction has been a major and popular research topic for the following reasons. First, individual's evaluations of housing and neighborhoods determine the way they respond to residential environment and form the basis for public policy feedback. Second, residential satisfaction is recognized as important components of an individual's quality of life. Furthermore, high satisfaction among residents encourages them to stay on and induces others to move in, and low satisfaction with the neighborhood environment urges current residents to move out.
On the other hand, although physical characteristics of housing units are known to be very effective in the residential satisfaction rating by many scholars, it should be noted that the dwelling unit itself is not the only factor of satisfaction but it is only a subsystem of the whole residential livability system. In this sense, humans interact with multiple components in their living environment, and continuously influence the environment and are affected by it. This interaction alters an individual’s feeling toward their residential environment. thus, this interaction can be examined in the form of a system that includes residential units, neighborhood and neighbors. In regards to neighborhood satisfaction, although some researches find that the physical characteristics are the most important factors and planners support the importance of physical characteristics, residents consider social factors more important in judging a neighborhood. The current study assesses the level of residential satisfaction in two neighborhoods of Tehran and compares them to create a basis for evaluating urban policies and decisions in recent years and shows the effectiveness of different factors on the satisfaction of residents of different neighborhoods by comparing them. For this purpose, the operating model to measure satisfaction was derived by examining studies of different researchers in the form of approaches (including the belief-affect approach, the commitment approach and the availability approach), factors (individual's characteristics, characteristics of residential environment, feeling and perception of residents etc.) and models (Amerigo model, comparing the level of satisfaction in culturally homogeneous and heterogeneous neighborhoods model etc.). In the proposed model, attention has been paid to all three levels of person, dwelling unit and residential environment and factors which affect satisfaction have been classified under five categories: objective criteria related to the individual, objective criteria related to the environment, objective criteria related to the dwelling unit, subjective criteria related to the individual and subjective criteria related to the environment through a survey questionnaire. Satisfaction levels of residents of neighborhood 1 (located in region three of Tehran municipality) and residents of neighborhood 2 (located in region 11 of Tehran municipality) were compared with each other. A total of 100 questionnaires were completed for each neighborhood. Findings of the study show that the highest and lowest satisfaction in neighborhood 1 were linked to the objective criteria related to the dwelling unit and objective criteria related to the environment and in neighborhood 2, to subjective criteria related to the environment and subjective criteria related to the individual. Overall satisfaction in neighborhood 1 (between moderate and satisfied) was higher than neighborhood 2 (between dissatisfied and moderate).
