Prioritization of the Eelements Affecting Urban Environmental Quality in Shiraz

Abstract

AbstractUrban environmental quality as a part of the urban life quality has a special position in contemporary urban planning studies because the higher the quality of an urban environment is, the higher the potential for smart and sustainable development will be. The physical and rapid growth of cities and urban sprawl in the third-world cities like Iran has caused urban life with environmental problems and poor quality of urban environment in the 21st century. This study aimed to investigate the factors affecting the quality of urban environment in Shiraz City. This research used a practical and descriptive-analytical approach. Archival and surveying methods were utilized to collect the data through a researcher-made questionnaire. The statistical population included Shiraz citizens. A total of 384 questionnaires were completed by using Cochran’s formula. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was applied to validate the relationships between the variables and analyze them with the LISREL program. The correlation between the variables confirmed a significant relationship between the elements of residential, physical, content, and functional environments in the quality of urban environment in Shiraz. The highest correlations of functional characteristics, including health services, commercial services, recreational services, and social welfare services, with physical characteristics, including urban space, access and transportation, and spaces and buildings (0.67), followed by those of the characteristics of residential environment with physical characteristics (0.65) and then those of functional characteristics with environmental factors (0.64) were found, which showed the influences of the mentioned characteristics on the quality of urban environment in Shiraz.IntroductionThe concept of environmental quality has emerged from compatibility of the concepts of quality of life and architectural and urban planning knowledge. Urban life quality has been one of the first research topics emphasized by urban planners since the 1930s when the growth of communities started. Over the past 50 years, urban communities have faced an environmental quality decline due to rapid urbanization in Iran. Therefore, urban planning measures must be taken to improve the environmental quality of cities. Population growth in Shiraz City has been also very fast and rapid urbanization and modernization has increased the pressure on the environmental development of this city. This city has had challenges, such as physical abnormality, air pollution, noise pollution, inequality in the use of welfare services, recreation, traffic, and parks and green spaces, marginal areas (200,000 people are slum dwellers now), lack of optimal access, ecological segregation, and degradation of the quality of the environment. This article addressed prioritization of the components affecting the quality of the urban environment in Shiraz City by using the path analysis method and LISREL program. We lacked a comprehensive conceptualization in the present research. Previous studies have presented ideas about urban environmental quality, which have not investigated a wide range of the relevant dimensions; some dimensions have not been investigated by other researchers and some other dimensions have been ignored. Therefore, this study aimed to answer the following question: Which components affecting environmental quality in Shiraz City have the highest priorities with the most impact?” Methods and materials This research used a practical and descriptive-analytical approach. Archival and surveying methods were used for data collection. The present study was an applied research. Internal articles and magazines were reviewed and a researcher-made questionnaire was applied with specialized survey questions in the studied field and scored on Likert scale. The statistical population included Shiraz citizens. A total of 384 questionnaires were completed by using Cochran’s formula. The indicators related to environmental quality were analyzed. Face validity was employed to validate the indicators and Cronbach's alpha was utilized to determine the internal consistency. Analysis of the relevant questionnaire, and its data information was done usinig SPSS statistics. Then, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to validate the relationship between the variables and analyze them by LISREL. Results and discussion The current research used the 4 elements of residential, physical, content, and functional environment to investigate urban environmental quality. The element of residential environment included the 4 indicators of location, construction quality, cost, and facilities. Facilities had the highest impact (0.63) and location had the lowest impact (0.4) among the indicators of residential environment. The element of physical environment included the 3 indicators of urban space, access and transportation, and space and buildings. Space and buildings had the highest impact (0.72) and urban space had the lowest impact (0.6) among the indicators of physical environment. Content environment included the 4 indicators of restoration of place attachment, environmental health, lifestyle, and security and social relations. Restoration of place attachment had the highest impact (0.78) and security and social relations had the lowest impact (0.58) among the indicators of content environment. The element of functional environment included the 4 indicators of health services, commercial services, recreational services, and social welfare services. Health services had the highest impact (0.64) and recreational services had the lowest impact (0.48) among the indicators of functional environment. The results of the analysis of the structural model for examining the relationship between the components of the hidden variable of the research showed that there was a significant relationship between the components. According to the results, there was the highest correlation between the characteristics of functional environment, including health services, commercial services, recreational services, and social welfare services, and those of physical environment, including urban space, access, transportation, and spaces and buildings (0.67) followed by the characteristics of residential environment, which had the highest correlation with the characteristics of physical environment (0.65), and then the characteristics of functional environment with those of environmental factors (0.64), all of which showed their influences on the quality of urban environment in Shiraz City. Therefore, liveliness and vitality in the environment with the simultaneous effects of functional and physical characteristics could ultimately lead to the diversity of functions and spaces. Conclusion Today, urban environmental quality is one of the important topics that are always raised in all the cities in the world because the higher the quality of an urban environment is, the higher the potential for sustainable development will be. Various factors and priorities, including the characteristics of residential, functional, content, and physical environment, are investigated when discussing urban environmental quality. In Iran, people place more emphasis on the quality of urban environment with rapid urbanization. Air pollution, destruction of vegetation, water loss and pollution, and waste classification have limited sustainable developments in the urban environment. Analyzing the impacts of these environmental concerns is a prerequisite for implementing a sustainable urban environmental policy. This article investigated and prioritized the effective factors in the environmental quality of Shiraz City with a descriptive-analytical approach. After collecting the involved indicators from scientific articles, designing a questionnaire based on the Likert scale and distributing them among 382 households in Shiraz City, and collecting their information and the output of LISREL software, the results led to prioritization of the components of physical characteristics (0.88), content characteristics (0.84), functional characteristics (0.76), and residential characteristics (0.74) played an essential role in the environmental quality of Shiraz City. The dimensions of urban space, access and transportation, and spaces and buildings in the physical component had a greater impact on the urban environmental quality based on the path analysis test. These findings confirmed those obtained by Qashqaei et al. (2016) and Hatami and Zaker Haghighi (2017). Therefore, we could conclude that public spaces of Shiraz City played an essential role in developing social interactions and improving the quality of the environment. The results of the present research revealed that the influences of health and commercial services in the functional element were more than those of the recreational and welfare dimensions; this was consistent with the results achieved by Abron et al. (2017). The findings related to the content element indicated that the design of arrangement content factors improved readiness of the environment and strengthened the sense of place for citizens and urban space users. In general, it can be said that physical-spatial elements can play a decisive role by prioritizing the dimensions of health and commercial services, along with the content dimensions as the change factors in urban environmental quality. Keywords: Prioritization, Urban environmental quality, Quality of life, Route analysis, Shiraz References- Dace, E., Stibe, A., & Timma, L. (2019). 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Keywords

• prioritization
• urban environmental quality
• quality of life
• route analysis
• shiraz