Subjective housing quality and citizens’ territorial identity (based on a survey of residents of the city of Kaluga)

Abstract

The author of this article examines the possibility of developing a favorable image for the urban environment given low-quality housing conditions, based on materials from the author's own survey of residents of urban and rural areas of the “Kaluga City” municipality. Having made a conclusion that it is possible, we try to determine what residents consider principle differences between “favorable” and “unfavorable” urban environments, and which factors form the definitions for near and far space. Our data showed that environmental images are differentiated by the “centre-periphery” axis. In suburbs such an image is formed based on neighborhood quality. On the outskirts it is marked by migration, which limits indigenous people’s access to housing resources and poses a threat to the rule of law. In the neighborhoods of the new center the main sign is how educational institutions operate. In the historical center it is multifaceted safety. The most comprehensive variable to determine how comfortable an urban environment is perceived to be by citizens is an assessment of living conditions in the neighborhood. Evaluations of the city and housing are independent of each other, with few exceptions. Suburban areas and the historic center, due to their specificity, do not collect habitation and the city into a single image. Median zones of standard housing development within the “inner city” (city outskirts, and new central districts), in contrast, show a strong relation between the evaluations of housing and the city, although the focus of this link seems to be differentiated. However, the evaluation of the neighborhood is associated with each of the two named variables, which provides citizens with the most reliable prospect of social comparisons when determining measures of personal well-being.