Assessment of the Comfort of the Urban Environment as a Factor in the Social Well-Being of Citizens of the Arkhangelsk Oblast

Abstract

Since 2016, Russia has been implementing the priority federal program “Formation of a Comfortable Urban Environment”. During this period, significant funds have been spent and hundreds of improvement projects implemented in the urban environment in both large and small cities across the country. How did these improvements affect the subjective assessment of the urban environment among citizens? Are the residents involved in the development of these projects, or are they indifferent to these topics? Is there a difference in assessing the quality of the urban environment by the citizens between small and medium cities, company towns and multifunctional metropolitan areas? The article is a partial analysis of a comprehensive study’s data, “The Formation of a Comfortable Urban Environment in the Arkhangelsk Oblast”. The survey was conducted among residents of 5 cities of the Arkhangelsk oblast (n = 793). The methodology for assessing social well-being is used. The cities studied are varied in the typology of size and the dominant form of employment. The results of the study demonstrate the interest of residents in implementation projects. Assessment of the current urban environment is recorded as moderately unsatisfied. Moreover, there is no fundamental difference in assessments of the urban environment’s current conditions in the opinions of residents of small and single-industry towns and citizens of a large, regional center city.

Keywords

• city
• urban environment
• social well-being
• urban environment quality index
• urban transfor-mation